Empirical Software Engineering Research: Methodology Papers

by Martin Monperrus

Here are important papers about empirical research in software engineering.

–Martin

Books

(chronological order)

Articles

(chronological order):

What is experimental computer science? (1980) is a nice summary in 2 pages about empirical research.

Experimentation in software engineering (Basili 1986)

Case Studies for Method and Tool Evaluation (IEEE Software 1995) defines a “case study” as a study of a single real software development project, for which it is not possible to have replication (hence it is not a forma1 experiment according to Kitchenham et al.). It provides guidelines for designing and performing such case studies.

Should computer scientists experiment more? (Tichy, Computer 1998) debunks arguments for not doing empirical research in computer science.

Experimental Models for Validating Technology (Computer 1998) presents 12 empirical validation techniques, and classifies 612 papers in those 12 categories.

Preliminary guidelines for empirical research in software engineering (Kitchenham et a, TSE 2002) gives 34 guidelines about empirical research, not focusing on specific kinds of empirical research.

Selecting Empirical Methods for Software Engineering Research (Springer 2008) discusses five types of empirical research: controlled experiments (including quasi-Experiments), case studies (both exploratory and confirmatory), survey research, ethnographies, action research.

Guidelines for conducting and reporting case study research in software engineering (EmSE 2009) takes a broad definition of case study: “an empirical method aimed at investigating contemporary phenomena in their context” and provide guidelines similarly to Kitchenham 2002.

A practical guide for using statistical tests to assess randomized algorithms in software engineering (ICSE 2010) tries to educate software engineering researchers about statistics.

Misc

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