Complete thesis - Murdoch University

and Intellectual Capability. Stance incorporates Emotional Intelligence (personal andsocial), and addresses the affective and generic attributes noted above; Intellectual Capabilityincludes Way of Thinking (including cognitive intelligence and creativity) and DiagnosticMaps (model making developed through reflection on experience), addressing the cognitiveaspects. Although this framework has been developed to address practitioner needs fromEngineering graduates, the correlation with IT practitioner concerns is strong – the commontheme is evident from the majority of studies. In particular, even the early studies of REcompetence indicated the importance of personal abilities/characteristics (eg Kozar (1989))while intellectual capabilities (such as the manipulation of problem space (Thomas et al,1977)) are identified as important for competent practice. A link to Gardner (1983)’s modelof multiple intelligences is also established (see Section 2.1.4).In Requirements Engineering, the gap between formal education and practitioner needs isgreat enough for professionals to doubt RE as a discipline for new graduates to engage with(Minor, 2004) – or even for RE being a suitable topic for university study (Macauley andMylopoulos, 1995b). Academics have expressed similar concerns (Bentley et al, 1999; Banks,2003).The educational dilemma therefore is to provide RE students with a solid foundation insubject matter while at the same time• exposing them to the inherent characteristics associated with real requirements problems• addressing the knowledge required to solve them, implying a explicit focus on◦ the cognitive skills related to higher order learning and metalearning/metacognition◦ strategies to enable opportunism and creativity◦ the development of the affective skills related to emotional intelligence.One critical finding from the review of practitioner perspective relates to the importance oforganisational (as opposed to individual) maturity. An emphasis on soft and cognitive skillsin its employees has been shown to be a characteristic of a mature organisation (Benbasatet al, 1980). This is worthy of further investigation, in particular in relation to the disciplineof RE. If technical skill acts as a filter to employment (as has been discussed in Chapter 2),do only mature IT organisations engage in competent RE?394