Related papers: Moving Beyond the Mean: Analyzing Variance in Soft…
Variance theories quantify the variance that one or more independent variables cause in a dependent variable. In software engineering (SE), variance theories are used to quantify -- among others -- the impact of tools, techniques, and other…
Experiments are a commonly used method of research in software engineering (SE). Researchers report their experiments following detailed guidelines. However, researchers do not, in the field of test-driven development (TDD) at least,…
Software engineering research is evolving and papers are increasingly based on empirical data from a multitude of sources, using statistical tests to determine if and to what degree empirical evidence supports their hypotheses. To…
Context: Test-driven development (TDD) is an agile software development approach that has been widely claimed to improve software quality. However, the extent to which TDD improves quality appears to be largely dependent upon the…
Background: Test suites are frequently used to quantify relevant software attributes, such as quality or productivity. Problem: We have detected that the same response variable, measured using different test suites, yields different…
Controlled experiments are a core research method in software engineering (SE) for validating causal claims. However, recruiting a sample of participants that represents the intended target population is often difficult or expensive, which…
Background. Software Engineering (SE) researchers extensively perform experiments with human subjects. Well-defined samples are required to ensure external validity. Samples are selected \textit{purposely} or by \textit{convenience},…
Experimentation is an essential method for causal inference in any empirical discipline. Crossover-design experiments are common in Software Engineering (SE) research. In these, subjects apply more than one treatment in different orders.…
Software engineering (SE) is full of abstract concepts that are crucial for both researchers and practitioners, such as programming experience, team productivity, code comprehension, and system security. Secondary studies aimed at…
Context: Software Engineering (SE) experiments suffer from threats to validity that may impact their results. Replication allows researchers building on top of previous experiments' weaknesses and increasing the reliability of the findings.…
Evaluating Software testability can assist software managers in optimizing testing budgets and identifying opportunities for refactoring. In this paper, we abandon the traditional approach of pursuing testability measurements based on the…
Assessment of multimedia quality relies heavily on subjective assessment, and is typically done by human subjects in the form of preferences or continuous ratings. Such data is crucial for analysis of different multimedia processing…
Estimating software testability can crucially assist software managers to optimize test budgets and software quality. In this paper, we propose a new approach that radically differs from the traditional approach of pursuing testability…
As any scientific discipline, the software engineering (SE) research community strives to contribute to the betterment of the target population of our research: software producers and consumers. We will only achieve this betterment if we…
In general, professionals still ignore scientific evidence in place of expert opinions in most of their decision-making. For this reason, it is still common to see the adoption of new software technologies in the field without any…
Test-driven development (TDD) is a programming technique in which the tests are written prior to the source code. It is proposed that TDD is one of the most fundamental practices enabling the development of software in an agile and…
The heterogeneity in the organization of software engineering (SE) research historically exists, i.e., funded research model and hands-on model, which makes software engineering become a thriving interdisciplinary field in the last 50…
The experimental evaluation of the methods and concepts covered in software engineering has been increasingly valued. This value indicates the constant search for new forms of assessment and validation of the results obtained in Software…
The potential disconnect between research and practice in software engineering (SE) means that the uptake of research outcomes has at times been limited. In this paper we seek to identify research approaches that are rigorous in terms of…
Assessing the personality of software engineers may help to match individual traits with the characteristics of development activities such as code review and testing, as well as support managers in team composition. However,…