Students’ Confidence and Challenges in Writing Software Requirements: A Preliminary Study

Abstract

This paper reports a preliminary study of students’ perceptions of their ability to understand, analyze, and write software requirements. It describes students’ self-reported confidence and the challenges they face when producing requirements. The goal is to identify teaching approaches that help students write clear and effective requirements that support the full software development life cycle (SDLC). Quantitative results are presented as frequencies and percentages, and qualitative responses are analyzed thematically. The findings show moderate student confidence and common difficulties with ambiguity and with requirements that are not specific enough.