Two Decades of Empirical Research on Developers' Information Needs

Bouraffa, Abir; Maalej, Walid

doi:10.1145/3387940.3391485

Cited by 5 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…Historically, research shows convenience sampling to be the most predominant sampling strategy within software engineering research and that many participants come from a few companies in industry [9]. These historical sampling strategies raise concerns for generalizablity and and overall appropriateness of sample size.…”

Section: B Participant Recruitment In Software Engineering Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Under the Bridge: Trolling and the Challenges of Recruiting Software Developers for Empirical Research Studies

Kokinda¹,

Moster²,

Rodeghero³

2023

Preprint

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Much of software engineering research focuses on tools, algorithms, and optimization of software. Recently, we, as a community, have come to acknowledge that there is a gap in meta-research and addressing the human-factors in software engineering research. Through meta research, we aim to deepen our understanding of online participant recruitment and human-subjects software engineering research. In this paper we motivate the need to consider the unique challenges that human studies pose in software engineering research. We present several challenges faced by our research team in several distinct research studies, how they affected research, and motivate how, as researchers, we can address these challenges. We present results from a pilot study and categorize issues faced into three broad categories including participant recruitment, community engagement, and data poisoning. We further discuss how we can address these challenges and outline the benefits a full-study could provide to the software engineering research community.

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Section: B Participant Recruitment In Software Engineering Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Under the Bridge: Trolling and the Challenges of Recruiting Software Developers for Empirical Research Studies

Kokinda¹,

Moster²,

Rodeghero³

2023

Preprint

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“…In practice, sampling tends to be based on the practitioner's functional role, perhaps with the additional inclusion of experience or expertise, e.g., experienced software architects, or novice programmers. Also, researchers tend to use a convenience sample [3], often with self-selecting participants, e.g., respondents aware of and willing to participate in, for example, a survey.…”

Section: Motivationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Recruiting credible participants for field studies in software engineering research

Rainer¹,

Wohlin²

2021

Preprint

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Context: Software practitioners are a primary provider of information for field studies in software engineering. Research typically recruits practitioners through some kind of sampling. But sampling may not in itself recruit credible participants. Objectives: To propose and demonstrate a framework for recruiting professional practitioners as credible participants in field studies of software engineering. Method: We review existing guidelines, checklists and other advisory sources on recruiting participants for field studies. We develop a framework, partly based on our prior research and on the research of others. We search for and select three exemplar studies (a case study, an interview study and a survey study) and use those to demonstrate the application of the framework. Results: Whilst existing guidelines etc. recognise the importance of recruiting participants, there is limited guidance on how to recruit the right participants. Our demonstration of the framework with three exemplars shows that at least some members of the research community are aware of the need to carefully recruit participants. Conclusions:The framework provides a new perspective for thinking about the recruitment of credible practitioners for field studies of software engineering. In particular, the framework identifies a number of characteristics not explicitly addressed by existing guidelines.

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Under the Bridge: Trolling and the Challenges of Recruiting Software Developers for Empirical Research Studies

Kokinda

Moster

Dominic

et al. 2023

2023 IEEE/ACM 45th International Conference on Software Engineering: New Ideas and Emerging Results (ICSE-NIER)

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Two Decades of Empirical Research on Developers' Information Needs

Cited by 5 publications

References 41 publications

Under the Bridge: Trolling and the Challenges of Recruiting Software Developers for Empirical Research Studies

Under the Bridge: Trolling and the Challenges of Recruiting Software Developers for Empirical Research Studies

Recruiting credible participants for field studies in software engineering research

Under the Bridge: Trolling and the Challenges of Recruiting Software Developers for Empirical Research Studies

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