What can go wrong in software engineering experiments?

Abstract:

An astronomer wants to buy a telescope to observe a distant galaxy. He must be careful when choosing it, since viewed through the wrong telescope the galaxy will be an indecipherable blur. An experiment is an instrument we use in Software Engineering (SE) to analyze software development. The reliability of the findings is critically dependent on the alignment between the instrument and the phenomenon that we are studying. If our instrument is not properly aligned everything will be a blur, but we will mistakenly take it to be right. The aim of this chapter is to help readers to avoid common pitfalls when running SE experiments.

Año de publicación:

2016

Keywords:

• Between-subjects designs
• Statistical significance
• Experimentation
• Operationalization
• Within-subjects designs
• Power analysis

Fuente:

scopus