Topic:

Emerged to guide the achievement and measurement for creating high-quality software products, International Software Quality Standards (ISQS) play a critical role in ensuring that software products meet defined levels of quality in an increasingly interconnected and competitive global market [1-3]. Despite their recognized importance, the adoption and effective implementation of ISQS vary significantly across sectors and regions, influenced by factors such as organizational maturity, resource availability, and awareness levels [1-3]. A clear understanding of the status of ISQS adoption, the challenges inherent in their implementation, and their measurable impact on software development is critical to advancing both the pedagogical frameworks for ISQS training in undergraduate software engineering programs and the refinement of industry practices in software engineering [4-9].

A well-documented challenge in software engineering is the persistent gap between academic curricula and industrial practice [4-7]. Studies consistently show that academia overemphasizes theoretical foundations while under-delivering on practical skills essential to industry, such as testing, configuration management, and software processes [10]. This gap between education and industry’s expectations persists despite decades of awareness, driven by intertwined systemic issues [7]. Analyses of curriculum coverage reveal that core industrial requirements, including design, testing, and soft skills, remain underrepresented [12]. A critical but underexplored component of this gap is the inadequate treatment of ISQS in undergraduate education.

A critical but underexplored component of this gap is the role of international software quality standards (ISQS). Muñoz identified the challenges professors face in teaching ISQS, including the abstractness and documentation-heavy nature of standards [10]. There are many studies on practical ways of teaching software engineering [10-12]. Laporte et al. proposed an innovative model where students actively implemented and improved ISO/IEC 29110, thereby fostering “standards professionals” with industry-relevant skills [12]. 

This study, conducted within an ERASMUS+ project, that explores software professionals’ perceptions of ISQS in Spain and Türkiye. Through semi-structured interviews with 20 experts from academia and industry, we investigate awareness, adoption, perceived ease of use, usefulness, actual usage, and barriers. By connecting professional reflections to educational needs, the study offers insights into current practices and provides recommendations for integrating ISQS into undergraduate software engineering curricula.

Given the existing gap between the software engineering industry requirements and the SE curriculum agenda regarding ISQS, this study aims to help mitigate this gap by exploring and understanding the experiences and perceptions of SE professionals with ISQS. These insights can then be used to give more practical relevance to educational initiatives for integrating ISQS into the software engineering curriculum. 

Objectives:

The objective of this study is to measure and mitigate the gap on ISQS between practice and academia. The IT-ISQS project aims at generating an innovative learning environment by combining state of the art digital technologies (AI and virtual tutors) with games, interactive activities, exercises, and course material.

Research Questions:

• RQ1: What are the levels of awareness and use of ISQS?
• RQ2: What is the perceived ease of use of ISQS?
• RQ3: What is the perceived usefulness of ISQS?
• RQ4: What is the actual level of use of ISQS?
• RQ5: What are the stated barriers regarding use of ISQS?
• RQ6: What are professionals’ other comments on ISQS?

Note: The study will be performed to fulfill requirements of an Erasmus+ Project titled as Innovative Training for International Software Engineering Standards (IT-IS-QS). The IT-ISQS project will be implemented at three countries: Türkiye, Span and the Netherlands.

To understand views and experiences of professionals related to ISQS, we conducted semi-structured interviews. In a semi-structured interview, the interview generally follows a conversational flow. Depending on the flow, new questions may be devised as new information is learned. In semi-structured interviews the same topics are covered in each interview, and it is typical that some open-ended questions allow for greater interaction. The data from semi-structured interviews is usually analyzed using qualitative analysis methods. Semi-structured interviews are versatile, flexible, and adaptable qualitative research methods The overall methodology adopted in this study, which consists of two phases, following a qualitative approach. Phase 0, Planning & Preparation, is followed by Phase 1, in which interviews were conducted and reported. For the interviews, we applied ethical principles specific to software engineering research. Participation of the interviewees was voluntary. Both in Türkiye and Spain, the researchers selected a sample participant list, targeting different kinds of roles and employers, and invited them for online meetings. To protect the privacy and confidentiality of the participants, we anonymized their identities. Before recording the interviews, oral consent of the participants was requested and collected. The researcher documented participant responses. We prepared a research protocol and drafted two main types of interview questions: (1) demographics and (2) open-ended. For demographics, we asked about participants’ job roles, years of experience, and company background. For open-ended questions, we asked about: levels of awareness and use of ISQS, perceived ease of use of ISQS, perceived usefulness of ISQS, actual level of use of ISQS, stated barriers regarding use of ISQS, professionals’ other comments on ISQS. Before conducting the interviews, the list of participants to be interviewed online was predetermined. One researcher prepared the main interview questions and shared them with other researchers who also conducted interviews. N.B. The data on/of the interviews for which concent is taken from the participants will be made available for other researchers upon request.

This interview study examined how software professionals in Spain and Türkiye perceive and apply ISQS. While participants report strong conceptual awareness, consistent practice lags due to perceived complexity, documentation overhead, and uneven curricular coverage. Adoption is facilitated by tool support, role-specific training, and an organizational culture that values quality; conversely, access cost and interpretation difficulty—especially outside regulated domains—remain practical barriers. These findings reinforce the long-observed gap between theory-heavy education, and the hands-on competencies industry expects, and point to the need for standard-aware, practice-integrated pedagogy. Awareness of ISQS among professionals is high; however, the practical application of these standards often lags behind due to their inherent complexity and the significant resources required for implementation. Tool support emerges as a critical factor in making ISQS easier to use and promoting wider adoption across organizations. There is also a pronounced gap between academia and industry when it comes to ISQS education and the development of practical skills, which underscores a need for more hands-on, experience-based training. Key barriers to ISQS adoption include the financial and time costs, documentation burden, cultural resistance within organizations, and a general lack of awareness, particularly among less experienced developers. Moving forward, efforts must prioritize practical, context-sensitive ISQS education and the development of tools that streamline and support the integration of standards into real-world practice. We will (i) field a larger cross-country survey to validate and generalize these results; (ii) design and evaluate classroom interventions (serious games, case-driven projects, role-based labs) that operationalize ISQS; (iii) prototype lightweight, standards-aware tool integrations that auto-capture process evidence in CI/CD; and (iv) extend the cross-cultural analysis beyond Spain and Türkiye to derive adaptable teaching patterns and context-specific adoption guidance.

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