Guide to Advanced Empirical Software Engineering

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xi

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2. Research Methods and Techniques

   1. Software Engineering Data Collection for Field Studies

      • Janice Singer, Susan E. Sim, Timothy C. Lethbridge

      Pages 9-34

   2. Qualitative Methods

      • Carolyn B. Seaman

      Pages 35-62

   3. Personal Opinion Surveys

      • Barbara A. Kitchenham, Shari L. Pfleeger

      Pages 63-92

   4. The Focus Group Method as an Empirical Tool in Software Engineering

      • Jyrki Kontio, Johanna Bragge, Laura Lehtola

      Pages 93-116

   5. Simulation Methods

      • Mark Müller, Dietmar Pfahl

      Pages 117-152

3. Practical Foundations

   1. Statistical Methods and Measurement

      • Jarrett Rosenberg

      Pages 155-184

   2. Missing Data in Software Engineering

      • Audris Mockus

      Pages 185-200

   3. Reporting Experiments in Software Engineering

      • Andreas Jedlitschka, Marcus Ciolkowski, Dietmar Pfahl

      Pages 201-228

   4. A Practical Guide to Ethical Research Involving Humans

      • Norman G. Vinson, Janice Singer

      Pages 229-256

   5. The Management of University–Industry Collaborations Involving Empirical Studies of Software Enginee

      • Timothy C. Lethbridge, Steve Lyon, Peter Perry

      Pages 257-281

4. Knowledge Creation

   1. Selecting Empirical Methods for Software Engineering Research

      • Steve Easterbrook, Janice Singer, Margaret-Anne Storey, Daniela Damian

      Pages 285-311

   2. Building Theories in Software Engineering

      • Dag I. K. Sjøberg, Tore Dybå, Bente C. D. Anda, Jo E. Hannay

      Pages 312-336

   3. Building Theories from Multiple Evidence Sources

      • Forrest Shull, Raimund L. Feldmann

      Pages 337-364

   4. Replication's Role in Software Engineering

      • A. Brooks, M. Roper, M. Wood, J. Daly, J. Miller

      Pages 365-379

5. Back Matter

   Pages 381-388

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Empirical studies have become an important part of software engineering research and practice. Ten years ago, it was rare to see a conference or journal article about a software development tool or process that had empirical data to back up the claims. Today, in contrast, it is becoming more and more common that software engineering conferences and journals are not only publishing, but eliciting, articles that describe a study or evaluation. Moreover, a very successful conference (International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement), journal (Empirical Software Engineering), and organization (International Software Engineering Research Network) have all evolved in the last 10 years that focus solely on this area. As a further illustration of the growth of empirical software engineering, a search in the articles of 10 software engineering journals showed that the proportion of articles that used the term “empirical software engineering” d- bled from about 6% in 1997 to about 12% in 2006. While empirical software engineering has seen such substantial growth, there is not yet a reference book that describes advanced techniques for running studies and their application. This book aims to fill that gap. The chapters are written by some of the top international empirical software engineering researchers and focus on the practical knowledge necessary for conducting, reporting, and using empirical methods in software engineering. The book is intended to serve as a standard reference.

• Controlled experiment
• Data analysis
• Empirical software engineering
• Experimental software engineering
• Qualitative research
• Research methods
• Simula
• Simulation
• Software Engineering
• design
• knowledge management

"the book does a good job of minimizing the usual problems in a collection of papers by different authors. …There are ample references in each chapter, as well as a bibliography. This is indeed a guide, as it often just points to other sources. It should be very useful to graduate students and researchers engaged in empirical software engineering research."
(Andrew R. Huber, ACM Computing Reviews, February 2009)

• Fraunhofer Center Maryland, College Park, USA

  Forrest Shull

• National Research Council Canada, Ottawa, Canada

  Janice Singer

• Simula Research Laboratory, Norway

  Dag I. K. Sjøberg

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