A DESIGN OF SELF-QUESTIONING MECHANISM FOR INFORMATION REQUIREMENT SPECIFICATION

Incorrect requirement specifications are widely recognized as the major cause of information system failures. In order to improve the correctness of requirement specifications, various requirement specification techniques such as Data Flow Diagram, and Object Model, have been invented to help information analysts capture, understand, and represent information requirements. However, information analysts ’ cognitive abilities are still the most important determinant for the correctness of requirement specifications. Empirical studies have showed that novice information analysts cannot use requirement specification techniques effectively; and hence their performance of specifying information requirements is significantly lower than that of expert information analysts. Self-questioning has long been recognized in the field of learning research as a strategy that can improve students ’ cognitive abilities on reading comprehension and problem solving. In order to improve the cognitive abilities of novice information analysts, this research argued that novice information analysts should be trained to incorporate self-questioning mechanism into their requirement specification process. On the basis of the theories on human cognition, this research also proposed several design strategies for self-asking questions that can guide novice information analysts to make more effective model-based reasoning and hence to achieve a higher correctness of requirement specifications