228,812 research outputs found
Towards Understanding Motivation in Software Engineering
ABSTRACT Understanding motivation of software engineers has important implications for industrial practice. Motivation is a complex construct that seems to be affected by diverse environmental conditions and is likely to be moderated by personality and individual values, beliefs, and needs. Although research on motivation in software engineering has made important scientific progress, the majority of the methods adopted quantitative approaches, towards generalizable statements. Given the complexity of the human behavior, contextualized and explanatory theories are needed to account for this diversity. This article describes a research agenda of a PhD project that aims to build explanatory theories of motivation in software organizations. As research approach, it brings together qualitative evidence-based empirical methods such as systematic literature review, case studies and meta-ethnography. Research phases, current status, threats to validity and future plans are described in details but, since it is an ongoing work, it claims for feedback from the community in order to improve the general research consistency and credibility
Towards a Theory of Software Development Expertise
Software development includes diverse tasks such as implementing new
features, analyzing requirements, and fixing bugs. Being an expert in those
tasks requires a certain set of skills, knowledge, and experience. Several
studies investigated individual aspects of software development expertise, but
what is missing is a comprehensive theory. We present a first conceptual theory
of software development expertise that is grounded in data from a mixed-methods
survey with 335 software developers and in literature on expertise and expert
performance. Our theory currently focuses on programming, but already provides
valuable insights for researchers, developers, and employers. The theory
describes important properties of software development expertise and which
factors foster or hinder its formation, including how developers' performance
may decline over time. Moreover, our quantitative results show that developers'
expertise self-assessments are context-dependent and that experience is not
necessarily related to expertise.Comment: 14 pages, 5 figures, 26th ACM Joint European Software Engineering
Conference and Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering (ESEC/FSE
2018), ACM, 201
On the domain-specificity of mindsets: The relationship between aptitude beliefs and programming practice
This is the author's accepted manuscript. The final published article is available from the link below. Copyright @ 2013 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other users, including reprinting/ republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted components of this work in other works.Deliberate practice is important in many areas of learning, including that of learning to program computers. However, beliefs about the nature of personal traits, known as mindsets, can have a profound impact on such practice. Previous research has shown that those with a fixed mindset believe their traits cannot change; they tend to reduce their level of practice when they encounter difficulty. In contrast, those with the growth mindset believe their traits are flexible; they tend to maintain regular practice despite the level of difficulty. However, focusing on mindset as a single construct focused on intelligence may not be appropriate in the field of computer programming. Exploring this notion, a self-belief survey was distributed to undergraduate software engineering students. It revealed that beliefs about intelligence and programming aptitude formed two distinct constructs. Furthermore, the mindset for programming aptitude had greater utility in predicting software development practice, and a follow-up survey showed that it became more fixed throughout instruction. Thus, educators should consider the role of programming-specific beliefs in the design and evaluation of introductory courses in software engineering. In particular, they need to situate and contextualize the growth messages that motivate students who experience early setbacks
How software engineering research aligns with design science: A review
Background: Assessing and communicating software engineering research can be
challenging. Design science is recognized as an appropriate research paradigm
for applied research but is seldom referred to in software engineering.
Applying the design science lens to software engineering research may improve
the assessment and communication of research contributions. Aim: The aim of
this study is 1) to understand whether the design science lens helps summarize
and assess software engineering research contributions, and 2) to characterize
different types of design science contributions in the software engineering
literature. Method: In previous research, we developed a visual abstract
template, summarizing the core constructs of the design science paradigm. In
this study, we use this template in a review of a set of 38 top software
engineering publications to extract and analyze their design science
contributions. Results: We identified five clusters of papers, classifying them
according to their alignment with the design science paradigm. Conclusions: The
design science lens helps emphasize the theoretical contribution of research
output---in terms of technological rules---and reflect on the practical
relevance, novelty, and rigor of the rules proposed by the research.Comment: 32 pages, 10 figure
How Do You Feel, Developer? An Explanatory Theory of the Impact of Affects on Programming Performance
Affects---emotions and moods---have an impact on cognitive activities and the
working performance of individuals. Development tasks are undertaken through
cognitive processes, yet software engineering research lacks theory on affects
and their impact on software development activities. In this paper, we report
on an interpretive study aimed at broadening our understanding of the
psychology of programming in terms of the experience of affects while
programming, and the impact of affects on programming performance. We conducted
a qualitative interpretive study based on: face-to-face open-ended interviews,
in-field observations, and e-mail exchanges. This enabled us to construct a
novel explanatory theory of the impact of affects on development performance.
The theory is explicated using an established taxonomy framework. The proposed
theory builds upon the concepts of events, affects, attractors, focus, goals,
and performance. Theoretical and practical implications are given.Comment: 24 pages, 2 figures. Postprin
Deferred Action: Theoretical model of process architecture design for emergent business processes
E-Business modelling and ebusiness systems development assumes fixed company resources,
structures, and business processes. Empirical and theoretical evidence suggests that company resources
and structures are emergent rather than fixed. Planning business activity in emergent contexts requires
flexible ebusiness models based on better management theories and models . This paper builds and
proposes a theoretical model of ebusiness systems capable of catering for emergent factors that affect
business processes. Drawing on development of theories of the âaction and designâclass the Theory of
Deferred Action is invoked as the base theory for the theoretical model. A theoretical model of flexible
process architecture is presented by identifying its core components and their relationships, and then
illustrated with exemplar flexible process architectures capable of responding to emergent factors.
Managerial implications of the model are considered and the modelâs generic applicability is discussed
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