Purdue University faculty members—and married research partners—Kirsten Davis and James Davis have been awarded a $350,000 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to lead an innovative study on how software engineers can be better prepared for the age of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI).

The three-year project, launching in January of 2026, was funded through the NSF’s Research in the Formation of Engineers program. Kirsten Davis, an assistant professor in the School of Engineering Education, serves as the principal investigator, with her husband, James Davis, an assistant professor in Purdue’s Elmore Family School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, as co-principal investigator. Together, they will investigate what it means to be competent in prompt engineering—the ability to effectively interact with GenAI tools like ChatGPT in software development. Their work seeks to define the knowledge, skills, and dispositions that enable engineers to use GenAI productively and ethically.

"The framework we develop through this project can be used to inform both undergraduate STEM education and workforce development in software engineering," said Kirsten Davis. "We also anticipate that our framework could be adapted or extended for use in other STEM disciplines for additional educational impact."

The use of GenAI tools is rapidly transforming how software is built, yet there has been limited effort to redesign software engineering education to match this shift. This project takes a foundational step in addressing that gap. It will analyze how professional engineers interact with GenAI systems to understand what constitutes effective prompt engineering, which is an emerging competency essential for modern software development.

The interdisciplinary research will pursue three main activities:

1. Analyze Developer-GenAI interactions using a hybrid coding approach applied to a publicly available dataset of real-world software prompts;
2. Conduct a Delphi study with software engineering leaders, educators, and practitioners to validate and refine the emerging prompt engineering competency framework;
3. Develop learning modules and a related rubric that can support both education and workforce training initiatives.

The project is grounded in two well-established models: Socratic Questioning and the Goals-Operators-Methods-Selection Rules (GOMS) framework. Together, these theories will support the creation of a new, theory-informed framework for prompt engineering competency in software development.

To complement the technical analysis, the research team will also conduct interviews and surveys with industry leaders and practicing software engineers to better understand how GenAI is currently being used in practice and how prompt engineering skills vary across roles and industries. The project aims to deliver four societally relevant outcomes: A prompt engineering competency framework, along with instructional materials, that informs undergraduate STEM education; resources to support workforce development in software engineering; enhanced economic competitiveness through increased GenAI-enabled productivity; and stronger academia-industry partnerships, developed through the Delphi study and an external advisory board. 

This grant closely aligns with Kirsten Davis’s broader goal of creating educational experiences that prepare engineering students for future professional demands. The award also highlights the couple’s shared commitment to bridging engineering education with real-world, cutting-edge technological developments.

As part of NSF’s mission, the grant was selected based on its intellectual merit and broader societal impacts—two key pillars of the Foundation’s review criteria.