Object oriented vs structured analysis and design in system development courses

Aslina Saad

Abstract

Objectives: The main aim of this study was to investigate the factors that influence students’, academicians’, clients’, as well as developer’s preferences in choosing their preferred approach in system development, namely structured analysis design (SAD) or object-oriented analysis and design (OOAD). Methods: The research design was based on a survey methodology and a case study. For the survey, questionnaires were administered to 30 students and 38 academicians, who were randomly selected from several Malaysian universities. For the case study, the requirements of the information system were modeled and presented to several clients to elicit their feedback. The survey data were analyzed using SPSS Findings: The result shows that students preferred the use of OOAD approach, which clearly outnumbered those who preferred the SAD approach, which stood at 33%. Interestingly, the majority (53%) of academicians preferred the use of a mixture of both approaches. Likewise, the clients shared a similar view with the academicians, whereas the developer preferred the OOAD approach. Application/Improvements: Clearly, the findings suggest that both approaches are essential, but the one that is widely used by developers and preferred by students is OOAD, and thus should be given priority when it comes to structured analysis and design. As such, curriculum designers and institutions of higher learning, particularly those offering system analysis and design and related courses, should make the necessary changes to the existing curriculum such that the academic programs offered will be able to produce highly competent and skilled analysts and designers as required by the industry.

References

1. Benjamin, A.D. M (2014, 1 August 2017). Object Oriented Vs Structured Analysis: Is Structured Analysis Dead? Retrieved from https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20141023035917-338627392-object-ori ented-vs-structured-analysis-is-structured-analysis-dead

2. Falessi, D., Cantone, G., & Grande, C. (2007). A Comparison of Structured Analysis and Object Oriented Analysis an Experimental Study.

3. Motaz, S. (2010, 28 July 2017). Structured vs object oriented analysis and design. Retrieved from https://www.slideshare.net/mksaad/structure-vs-object-oriented-analysis-and-design

4. Pefkaros, K. (2008). Using object-oriented analysis and design over traditional structured analysis and design. International Journal of Business Research, 8(2), 219-227.

5. Guidry, B. N., & Stevens, D. P. (2014). Comparing perceptions of the systems analysis and design course. Journal of Computer Information Systems, 55(1), 40-47.

6. Korinek, O., & Hubalovsky, S. (2017, September). Research of Methods of Learning of Programming Objects-First and Object-Later. In International Conference on Applied Physics, System Science and Computers (pp.183-189). Springer, Cham.

7. Acheson, P. (2010, April). Methodology for object-oriented system architecture development. In Systems Conference, 2010 4th Annual IEEE (pp. 643-646). IEEE.

8. Kuo, T. C., Hsu, C. W., Ku, K. C., Chen, P. S., & Lin, C. H. (2012). A collaborative model for controlling the green supply network in the motorcycle industry. Advanced Engineering Informatics, 26(4), 941-950.

9. Sharma, N., & Sawai, D. (2011). Suggested Methodologies for Enhancing SAD. In 2011 Fourth International Conference on Emerging Trends in Engineering & Technology (pp. 1-4). IEEE.

10. Ang’ondi, E. K. (2013, July). Teachers Attitudes and perceptions on the use of ICT in teaching and learning as observed by ICT champions. In X World Conference on Computers in Education (pp. 1-8).

11. Ghoreshi, M., & Haghighi, H. (2016). An incremental method for extracting tests from object-oriented specification. Information and Software Technology, 78, 1-26.

12. Sinha, A. P., & Jain, H. (2017). Reusing business components and objects for modeling business systems: The influence of decomposition characteristics and analyst experience. Journal of Systems and Software, 131, 550-569.

13. Abdoli, S., & Kara, S. (2016). Designing warehouse logical architecture by applying object oriented model based system engineering. Procedia CIRP, 50, 713-718.

14. Bonvini, M., & Leva, A. (2011, January). Object-oriented quasi-3D sub-zonal airflow models for energy-related building simulation. In 18th IFAC World Congress (IFAC'11) (pp. 12946-12951).

15. Evertsz, R., Thangarajah, J., Yadav, N., & Ly, T. (2015). A framework for modelling tactical decision-making in autonomous systems. Journal of Systems and Software, 110, 222-238.

16. Fletcher, K. K., & Liu, X. (2011, June). Security requirements analysis, specification, prioritization and policy development in cyber-physical systems. In Secure Software Integration & Reliability Improvement Companion (SSIRI-C), 2011 5th International Conference on (pp.106-113). IEEE.

17. Sarkar, S., & Negi, A. (2013). Designing a high quality online course: A process driven approach using UML. In Contemporary Computing (IC3), 2013 Sixth International Conference on (pp. 262-267). IEEE.