The Impact of the PSP on Software Quality: Eliminating the Learning Effect Threat through a Controlled Experiment

Abstract

Data from the Personal Software Process (PSP) courses indicate that the PSP improves the quality of the developed programs. However, since the programs (exercises of the course) are in the same application domain, the improvement could be due to programming repetition. In this research we try to eliminate this threat to validity in order to confirm that the quality improvement is due to the PSP. In a previous study we designed and performed a controlled experiment with software engineering undergraduate students at the Universidad de la República. The students performed the same exercises of the PSP course but without applying the PSP techniques. Here we present a replication of this experiment. The results indicate that the PSP and not programming repetition is the most plausible cause of the important software quality improvements.

An experiment on how graduating students represent software designs

“…Previous studies using the same projects, showed that the nature of project 2 is different from the other projects, the process measures and product measures in project 2 are extremely different than in the rest of the projects (i.e., project 2 is an outlier), and it is usually discarded in statistical analysis [Grazioli et al 2014]. Therefore, we excluded the data of this project from the analyzes presented in this article.…”

Análisis de registros de comportamientos previos para la toma de decisiones. Aplicación para la dirección de proyectos software

“…Algunos de los más relevantes son los realizados en Méjico [4] y Tailandia [5], útiles para analizar comportamientos en situaciones "ideales", debido a las estrictas condiciones bajo las cuales son realizados. También son destacables otros trabajos como [6] y [7] donde se realizan distintos experimentos controlados con conjuntos de ingenieros de software, analizando el impacto del uso de PSP sobre su habilidad para estimar y planificar su trabajo, la calidad del software que desarrollan y su productividad.…”

A training process for improving the quality of software projects developed by a practitioner

“…6) An individual disciplined process affects software quality at a 95% confidence level [30], and the later the defects are found, the more costly it is to remove them [25]. 7) The PSP, and not repetition of programming assignments, is the most plausible cause of important software quality improvements [26].…”