Early examples of the use of gt in software engineer ing are by carver and coleman and oco nnor 18. Grounded theory gt is increasingly being used to study the human aspects of software engineering. This is the 2nd part of the 7th lecture of the 2020 course on empirical methods in software engineering by alessio ferrari, isticnr, pisa, italy. Developing a grounded theory to explain the practices of. Charmaz has served as the president of the pacific sociological association, vicepresident of the society for the study of. A grounded theory study, with a product of a substantive theory that explains how people manage the software development process, could.
A grounded theory study of indian software organizations, agile processes in software engineering and extreme programming, 10. Applications and systems are growing increasingly more complex and involve everincreasing numbers of users and stakeholders. Using grounded theory to study the human aspects of software. Grounded theory gt is gaining popularity as research method in software engineering. Another objective was to examine what types of software testing are performed in the professional software projects, and. In this blog post, i reflect on my experiences from conducting a grounded theory study as a software engineering researcher in summer 2010. Using grounded theory to study the human aspects of. Grounded theory has been a nonpreferable choice of methodology in the context of engineering research, and this study might provide a different perspective on this situation. May 28, 2011 although the method is time consuming and tedious, they find it to be an effective tool for software engineering research. In software engineering, grounded theory has been used to study daily standup meetings. We present metacodes, a new concept to guide grounded theory gt research in software engineering. Grounded theory is a method in naturalistic research that is used primarily to generate theory. Human aspects of software engineering,2010 24 schreiber, r.
Grounded theory is a method originally described by. The software development and testing process is incorporated at several parts of the cycle. However, gt is a complex method based on an inductive paradigm that is fundamentally different from. Paper presented at the proceedings of the 2008 conference of the center for advanced studies on collaborative research. Request pdf requirements engineering in software startups. A practical guide through qualitative analysis, was pub lished in 2006 by sage. Metacodes are constructed in the course of analyzing software engineering papers that use grounded theory as a research methodology. Scopus database indicates the number of grounded theory studies in computer science has been growing for the last decade fig. In nursing, grounded theory has been used to examine how bedside shift report can be used to keep patients safe. Grounded theory and requirements engineering requirements engineering is particularly attractive for grounded theory methodology for a number of reasons. A study of irish software product companies gerry coleman a, rory oconnor b a department of computing, dundalk institute of technology, dundalk, co. The software engineering education and training seet track is premier forum for research and experience reports on challenges, innovations, and best practices in software engineering and training. Page 1 of 19 using grounded theory to understand software process improvement. Sulabh tyagi, ritu sibal and bharti suri, adopting test automation on agile development projects.
Generating a useful theory of software engineeringv04unfpbk. Although the method is time consuming and tedious, they find it to be an effective tool for software engineering research. Grounded theory is a research method that involves forming a theory based on the gathered data as opposed to gathering data after forming a theory. The first study assesses the use of a software engineering tool, dialog charts, by systems designers calloway, 1988. Jun 22, 2015 a grounded theory of agile architecture waterman et al. In the study, peggy and i examined the role of a community portal, such as ibms jazz or microsofts msdn, in the process of communicating software development knowledge. We just presented the results of the study at esecfse in september 2011 paper. Grounded theory is introduced as an inductive, comparative methodology that provides systematic guidelines for gathering, synthesizing, analyzing, and conceptualizing qualitative data for the purpose of theory construction. A grounded theory of agile architecture waterman et al. Feb 08, 2012 types of grounded theory designsthere are three dominant designs for grounded theory.
I have a theory in mind, its a theory about why the division of labor among software developers, despite the goals of modularity, leads to the creation of dependencies that must be coordinated in order for code to successfully compile and run. The study is presented within a backdrop of organizational. On using grounded theory in software engineering research. Using grounded theory to study the human aspects of software engineering, in proc. Introduction software development is a costly and risky endeavor. Conceptions of understanding in engineering mathematics learning henry khiat singapore polytechnic, singapore mathematics is of utmost importance in engineering courses but studies on engineering students conceptions of understanding in mathematics learning are found lacking in the literature. We performed a high level analysis to discover common themes in such papers and discovered that gt had been applied primarily in three soware engineering. Unfortunately, the grounded theory method is still not widely understood in the software engineering discipline. So, therefore, grounded theory is extremely popular nowadays.
Why a theory of software engineering why should we be interested in creating a theory of software engineering. Jan 02, 2019 grounded theory sets out to discover or construct theory from data, systematically obtained and analysed using comparative analysis. A groundedtheory study of civil engineering design. The use of grounded theory in empirical software engineering. Grounded theory and linguistic analysis approach thirty third international conference on information systems, orlando 2012 3 codes, which are then aggregated into higherorder concepts called categories and their attributes properties. Devops, which stands for developmentoperations, is an important software engineering topic that arose from the it industry in 2009. Axial coding formalizes a set of procedures that allows for the reformulation of the data. Based on their own case of applying grounded theory in a software engineering context they provide insightful lessons learned and useful guidelines for how to interpret the canons of classical grounded theory literature. Early examples of the use of gt in software engineering are by.
Analysis of the interviews revealed prominent data patterns that. While grounded theory is inherently flexible, it is a complex methodology. Conference paper pdf available may 2016 with 3,211 reads. I dont want to read a grounded theory that doesnt present what the theory is a theory about. Oct 22, 20 we present metacodes, a new concept to guide grounded theory gt research in software engineering. Software engineering is a social science, so we need social methods. The methodology originates from the social sciences and aims at.
May 22, 2016 grounded theory in software engineering research. This paper explores the requirements engineering re process by conducting interviews with re professionals and applying grounded theory to determine whether a theory of re emerges. Procedures, canons, and evaluative criteria, qualitative sociology, vol. The objective of this mixed method study combining both the grounded theory method 56,63 and statistical analysis was to examine and identify the current state of testing tools and test automation in the software industry. Sep 21, 2011 in this blog post, i reflect on my experiences from conducting a grounded theory study as a software engineering researcher in summer 2010. Grounded theory method and linguistic analysis first, we suggest basing the inference steps and procedures of our approach loosely on gtm. Grounded theory has also helped research in the field of information technology to study the use of computer technology in older adults. Using this approach, a researcher begins with an existing data set and abstracts a hypothesis or a theory that accurately describes that data. Types of grounded theory designsthere are three dominant designs for grounded theory. Software engineering researchers are constantly looking to improve the quantity and quality of their research findings through the use of an appropriate research methodology. Grounded theory in software engineering research proceedings of. Cost overruns, project delays, stakeholder frustration, and defective products plague the industry. Using grounded theory to understand software process improvement. This study contributes evidence in support of grounded theory as a useful research methodology to investigate and study phenomena in the engineering world.
We employed grounded theory gt, a social science qualitative research methodology, to study devops education from academic and industrial. However, gt is a complex method based on an inductive paradigm that is fundamentally different. We present an overview of the grounded theory method and discuss its use. A grounded theoretical and linguistic analysis approach for. Understanding devops education with grounded theory icse. Qualitative research in software engineering springerlink. However, in many studies, we are required to involve multiple disciplines and generate a theory that explains a multidisciplinary phenomenon and incorporate combined concepts. Using grounded theory to study the experience of software. However, gt is a complex method based on an inductive paradigm that is fundamentally different from the traditional hypotheticodeductive research model. However, this research project is neither positivist nor interpretivist. Early examples of the use of gt in software engineering are by carver and coleman and oconnor 18.
Grounded theory has been getting more popular over the last decade. Grounded theory gt has proved an extremely useful research approach in several fields including medical sociology, nursing, education and management. This comparison illustrates ways in which grounded theory can be used to analyze and understand interview data. Grounded theory in software engineering research ieee xplore. We just presented the results of the study at esecfse in september 2011. Apr 28, 2020 this is the 2nd part of the 7th lecture of the 2020 course on empirical methods in software engineering by alessio ferrari, isticnr, pisa, italy. Grounded theory gt, a widespread qualitative research methodology, has been introduced to generate a theory from data that is gathered from one discipline. Basili vr, rombach d, schneider k, kitchenham b, pfahl d, selby rw eds empirical software engineering issues. Grounded theory gt has proved an extremely useful research approach in several fields including medical sociology, nursing, education and management theory. A grounded theoretical and linguistic analysis approach.
Thus, novice researchers strive to understand the discourse and the practical application of grounded theory concepts and processes. Cristoph treudes summary of his own use of grounded theory was helpful in providing some context and understanding for the more formal descriptions of grounded theory gt i. We invite high quality submissions describing original and unpublished results and experiences. Grounded theory gt has proved an extremely useful research approach in several fields including medical sociology, nursing, education and. The inclusion of software development into the grounded theory cycle has recently emerged in the field of software engineering in order to understand psychological and social phenomena. Grounded theory method an overview sciencedirect topics. Using grounded theory to understand software process. Key concepts from grounded theory, key rules in grounded theory, were pretty easily transposed to software. Theory is the foundation of science and provides explanations of phenomena as well as testable predictions. A grounded theory of software process improvement model.
Grounded theory is a systematic methodology to generate theory from data. Adolph s, hall w, kruchten p 2008 a methodological leg to stand on. In this paper, we describe the variants of gt and identify the core set of gt practices. And therefore, new qualitative researches that, the touch upon qualitative analysis started with this software and then ended up with doing or reading about grounded theory. Grounded theory sets out to discover or construct theory from data, systematically obtained and analysed using comparative analysis. We carefully and systematically selected 98 articles that mention gt, of which 52 explicitly claim to use gt, with the other 46. We then analyze the use of grounded theory in software engineering. Pdf a grounded theory of the requirements engineering. The basic principle behind grounded theory is that the hypotheses and theories emerge bottomup from the data rather than topdown from existing theory. Jan 29, 2020 carver j 2007 the use of grounded theory in empirical software engineering.
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