Related papers: Towards Improving the External Validity of Softwar…
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},…
Generalizability and transportability methods have been proposed to address the external validity bias of randomized clinical trials that results from differences in the distribution of treatment effect modifiers between trial and target…
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…
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.…
The generalizability of empirical findings to new environments, settings or populations, often called "external validity," is essential in most scientific explorations. This paper treats a particular problem of generalizability, called…
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…
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.…
Large-scale simulations play a central role in science and the industry. Several challenges occur when building simulation software, because simulations require complex software developed in a dynamic construction process. That is why…
[Context] In software engineering research, emphasis is given to sound evaluations of new approaches. While industry surveys or industrial case studies are preferred to evaluate industrial applicability, controlled experiments with student…
Context: Software testability is the degree to which a software system or a unit under test supports its own testing. To predict and improve software testability, a large number of techniques and metrics have been proposed by both…
Background. Starting from the 1960s, practitioners and researchers have looked for ways to empirically investigate new technologies such as inspecting the effectiveness of new methods, tools, or practices. With this purpose, the empirical…
Software Engineering (SE) experiments are traditionally analyzed with statistical tests (e.g., t-tests, ANOVAs, etc.) that assume equally spread data across treatments (i.e., the homogeneity of variances assumption). Differences across…
Autonomous vehicles are slowly becoming reality thanks to the efforts of many academic and industrial organizations. Due to the complexity of the software powering these systems and the dynamicity of the development processes, an…
When it comes to industrial organizations, current collaboration efforts in software engineering research are very often kept in-house, depriving these organizations off the skills necessary to build independent collaborative research. The…
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,…
As the automotive industry focuses its attention more and more towards the software functionality of vehicles, techniques to deliver new software value at a fast pace are needed. Continuous Experimentation, a practice coming from the…
Externally controlled trials (ECTs) are increasingly used when randomized controls are infeasible, unethical, or insufficient, including applications in rare diseases, oncology, pediatrics, and post-approval effectiveness research. Although…
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…
Objective: Randomized controlled trial (RCT) results often inform clinical decision-making, but the highly curated populations of trials and the care provided during the trial are often not reflective of real-world practice. The objective…
Background: The development of scientific software applications is far from trivial, due to the constant increase in the necessary complexity of these applications, their increasing size, and their need for intensive maintenance and reuse.…