1 / 6

Qualitative Methods in Software Engineering Research

Qualitative Methods in Software Engineering Research. ISERN Meeting Tuesday, October 10, 2000 Facilitators: Carolyn B. Seaman Reidar Conradi. What are Qualitative Methods?. Data in the form of words and pictures, not numbers

yvonne
Download Presentation

Qualitative Methods in Software Engineering Research

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Qualitative Methods in Software Engineering Research ISERN Meeting Tuesday, October 10, 2000 Facilitators: Carolyn B. Seaman Reidar Conradi

  2. What are Qualitative Methods? • Data in the form of words and pictures, not numbers • Data is richer and carries more information, but is harder to analyze than quantitative data • Helps deal with the complexity of a phenomenon • Can be either objective or subjective • Work well in combination with quantitative methods

  3. Data Collection Prior Ethnography Participant Observation Interviewing Surveys Document Analysis Data Analysis Coding Constant Comparison Method Cross-case analysis Member checking Auditing Overview of Techniques

  4. Judging Validity • Validity of methods • Triangulation • Documentation • Contradictory evidence • Weight of evidence • How much is enough? • Variety as well as quantity of evidence

  5. Advantages • Richer, more relevant results • Results more explanatory • Terminology of results • Closer to sources of data • Avoid errors in interpretation • Subjects are more a part of the research process

  6. Conclusions • Empirical software engineering researchers are now addressing more complex research questions • Qualitative methods, usually in combination with quantitative methods, can be helpful in handling this complexity • Qualitative methods are both flexible and rigorous • Qualitative analysis provides richer, more relevant, and more explanatory results

More Related