Using an Educational Mobile Application for Learning the Essence 1.2 Kernel Alphas

Essence 1.2 is a standard that facilitates the study of Software Engineering by essentializing the broad empirical knowledge related to this area. The main component of the standard is the kernel, which contains alphas that make it possible to assess the state and progress of a software project through the use of a holistic thinking framework. This paper presents an educational mobile application, denominated as Alphalingo, with which to learn the alphas, and which promotes active and meaningful learning through the inclusion of various learning styles, gamification and spaced learning. The educational proposal was evaluated by means of a formal experiment and a replication, which were carried out with professionals working at two software enterprises in Mexico. The experimentation method consisted of randomly selecting the participants in order to form two groups: a control group, whose members attended classes in order to learn the Essence 1.2 kernel alphas, and an experimental group, which learned using Alphalingo. The statistical results obtained from the meta-analysis carried out indicate that the use of Alphalingo has a greater degree of learning effectiveness and a greater motivating effect than the face-to-face method.