647 research outputs found
How do practitioners perceive the relevance of requirements engineering research? An ongoing study
The relevance of Requirements Engineering (RE) research to practitioners is a prerequisite for problem-driven research in the area and key for a long-term dissemination of research results to everyday practice. To understand better how industry practitioners perceive the practical relevance of RE research, we have initiated the RE-Pract project, an international collaboration conducting an empirical study. This project opts for a replication of previous work done in two different domains and relies on survey research. To this end, we have designed a survey to be sent to several hundred industry practitioners at various companies around the world and ask them to rate their perceived practical relevance of the research described in a sample of 418 RE papers published between 2010 and 2015 at the RE, ICSE, FSE, ESEC/FSE, ESEM and REFSQ conferences. In this paper, we summarize our research protocol and present the current status of our study and the planned future steps.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft
Why Research on Test-Driven Development is Inconclusive?
[Background] Recent investigations into the effects of Test-Driven
Development (TDD) have been contradictory and inconclusive. This hinders
development teams to use research results as the basis for deciding whether and
how to apply TDD. [Aim] To support researchers when designing a new study and
to increase the applicability of TDD research in the decision-making process in
the industrial context, we aim at identifying the reasons behind the
inconclusive research results in TDD. [Method] We studied the state of the art
in TDD research published in top venues in the past decade, and analyzed the
way these studies were set up. [Results] We identified five categories of
factors that directly impact the outcome of studies on TDD. [Conclusions] This
work can help researchers to conduct more reliable studies, and inform
practitioners of risks they need to consider when consulting research on TDD.Comment: ESEM '20: ACM / IEEE International Symposium on Empirical Software
Engineering and Measurement (ESEM), October 8--9, 2020, Bari, Ital
Passion Scale: Psychometric Properties and Factorial Invariance via Exploratory Structural Equation Modeling (ESEM)
A paixão é um importante elemento dentre os processos psicológicos envolvidos na realização de qualquer atividade, inclusive na prática esportiva. Dada a escassez de instrumentos válidos e fidedignos nacionalmente, esse estudo objetivou apresentar os processos de adaptação da Escala de Paixão para o contexto brasileiro. Participaram da pesquisa 789 atletas brasileiros (idade:16,62 ± 3,20; 58,4% homens). Visando a avaliação de suas propriedades psicométricas, a dimensionalidade da escala foi estimada através do método Hull e Exploratory Structural Equation Modeling, e a precisão pela fiabilidade compósita. Também se estimou a invariância do modelo fatorial entre homens e mulheres, e entre os participantes de diferentes nÃveis competitivos. Os resultados revelaram a estrutura bifatorial da escala, conforme hipótese teórica, com indicadores desejáveis de precisão. Também foi demostrada a equivalência do modelo de medida ao avaliar participantes dos diferentes sexos e diferentes nÃveis competitivos. Os resultados sugerem adequação da versão brasileira para avaliação deste construto.La pasión es un importante elemento entre los procesos psicológicos involucrados en la realización de cualquier actividad, incluso en la práctica deportiva. Considerando la escasez de instrumentos válidos y fiables en ámbito nacional, este estudio busca presentar los procesos de adaptación de la Escala de Pasión al contexto brasileño. En el estudio participaron 789 atletas brasileños (edad: 16,62 ± 3,20; un 58,4% hombres). Para la evaluación de sus propiedades psicométricas, la dimensionalidad de la escala se estimó por medio del método Hull y Exploratory Structural Equation Modeling; y la precisión, por la fiabilidad compuesta. También se calculó la invariancia del modelo factorial entre los hombres y las mujeres, y entre los participantes de diferentes niveles competitivos. Los resultados revelaron la estructura bifactorial de la escala, que confirma la hipótesis teórica, con indicadores deseables de precisión. También se demostró la equivalencia del modelo de medida en la evaluación de los participantes de ambos sexos y diferentes niveles competitivos. Los resultados sugieren adecuar la versión brasileña para la evaluación en este constructo.Passion is an important element among the psychological processes involved in the performance of any activity, including sports practice. Given the scarcity of nationally valid and reliable instruments, this study has the purpose of presenting the adaptation processes of the Passion Scale to the Brazilian context. A total of 789 Brazilian athletes (age:16.62±3.20; 58.4% men) participated in the study. To evaluate their psychometric properties, the scale dimensionality was estimated through the Hull method and Exploratory Structural Equation Modeling, and the accuracy by composite reliability. The factorial invariance model was estimated between men and women, and between participants of different competitive levels. Results showed the two-factor structure of the scale, according to the theoretical hypothesis, with desirable accuracy indicators. Equivalence of the measurement model was demonstrated when evaluating participants of different sexes and different competitive levels. Results suggest adequacy of the Brazilian version for the evaluation of this construct
Development and initial validation of the Life Skills Scale for Sport
Objectives The aim of this research was to develop a measure of life skills development through sport. Method Four studies were conducted to develop the Life Skills Scale for Sport (LSSS). Study 1 developed items for the scale and included 39 reviewers’ assessment of content validity. Study 2 included 338 youth sport participants and used exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and descriptive statistics to reduce the number of items in the scale and explore the factor structure of each subscale and the whole scale. Study 3 included 223 youth sport participants and assessed the factor structure of the scale using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), exploratory structural equation modeling (ESEM) and bifactor modeling. Study 4 investigated the test-retest reliability of the scale over a two-week period with 37 youth sport participants. Results Study 1 resulted in the development of the initial 144-item LSSS and provided content validity evidence for all items. Study 2 refined the scale to 47 items and provided preliminary evidence for the unidimensional factor structure of each subscale. Study 3 supported the factorial validity of the scale, with ESEM solutions providing the best fit and resulting in more differentiated factors. Study 4 provided evidence for the test-retest reliability of the scale. Conclusions Collectively, these studies provided initial evidence for the validity and reliability of the LSSS; a measure which can be used by researchers and practitioners to assess participants’ perceived life skills development through sport
Six reasons for rejecting an industrial survey paper
Context: Despite their importance in any empirically based research program, industrial surveys are not very common in the software engineering literature. In our experience, a possible reason is their difficulty of publication. Goal: We would like to understand what are the issues that may prevent the publication of papers reporting industrial surveys. Method: In this preliminary work, we analyzed the surveys we conducted and extracted the main lessons learned in terms of issues and problems. Results: Most common critics posed to industrial surveys are: lack of novelty, limitation of the geographic scope and sampling issues. Conclusions: Most objections that led to reject a survey paper actually are not easy to overcome and others are not so serious. These objections could restrain researchers from conducting this type of studies that represent an important methodological asset. For these reasons, we think that reviewers should be less severe to judge survey papers provided that all the limitations of the study are well explained and highlighte
A Decade of Code Comment Quality Assessment: A Systematic Literature Review
Code comments are important artifacts in software systems and play a
paramount role in many software engineering (SE) tasks related to maintenance
and program comprehension. However, while it is widely accepted that high
quality matters in code comments just as it matters in source code, assessing
comment quality in practice is still an open problem. First and foremost, there
is no unique definition of quality when it comes to evaluating code comments.
The few existing studies on this topic rather focus on specific attributes of
quality that can be easily quantified and measured. Existing techniques and
corresponding tools may also focus on comments bound to a specific programming
language, and may only deal with comments with specific scopes and clear goals
(e.g., Javadoc comments at the method level, or in-body comments describing
TODOs to be addressed). In this paper, we present a Systematic Literature
Review (SLR) of the last decade of research in SE to answer the following
research questions: (i) What types of comments do researchers focus on when
assessing comment quality? (ii) What quality attributes (QAs) do they consider?
(iii) Which tools and techniques do they use to assess comment quality?, and
(iv) How do they evaluate their studies on comment quality assessment in
general? Our evaluation, based on the analysis of 2353 papers and the actual
review of 47 relevant ones, shows that (i) most studies and techniques focus on
comments in Java code, thus may not be generalizable to other languages, and
(ii) the analyzed studies focus on four main QAs of a total of 21 QAs
identified in the literature, with a clear predominance of checking consistency
between comments and the code. We observe that researchers rely on manual
assessment and specific heuristics rather than the automated assessment of the
comment quality attributes
Role clarity deficiencies can wreck agile teams
Background
One of the twelve agile principles is to build projects around motivated individuals and trust them to get the job done. Such agile teams must self-organize, but this involves conflict, making self-organization difficult. One area of difficulty is agreeing on everybody’s role.
Background
What dynamics arise in a self-organizing team from the negotiation of everybody’s role?
Method
We conceptualize observations from five agile teams (work observations, interviews) by Charmazian Grounded Theory Methodology.
Results
We define role as something transient and implicit, not fixed and named. The roles are characterized by the responsibilities and expectations of each team member. Every team member must understand and accept their own roles (Local role clarity) and everbody else’s roles (Team-wide role clarity). Role clarity allows a team to work smoothly and effectively and to develop its members’ skills fast. Lack of role clarity creates friction that not only hampers the day-to-day work, but also appears to lead to high employee turnover. Agile coaches are critical to create and maintain role clarity.
Conclusions
Agile teams should pay close attention to the levels of Local role clarity of each member and Team-wide role clarity overall, because role clarity deficits are highly detrimental
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