Qualitative research in software engineering

Tore Dybå, Rafael Prikladnicki, Kari Rönkkö, Carolyn Seaman, Jonathan Sillito
2011 Empirical Software Engineering  
Qualitative research methods were developed in the social sciences to enable researchers to study social and cultural phenomena and are designed to help researchers understand people and the social and cultural contexts within which they live (Denzin and Lincoln 2011). The goal of understanding a phenomenon from the point of view of the participants and its particular social and institutional context is largely lost when textual data are quantified. Taylor and Bogdan (1984) point out that
more » ... ative research methods were designed mostly by educational researchers and other social scientists to study the complexities of human behavior (e.g., motivation, communication, difficulties in understanding). According to these authors, human behavior is clearly a phenomenon that, due to its complexity, requires qualitative methods to be fully understood, since much of human behavior cannot be adequately described and explained through statistics and other quantitative methods. Examples of qualitative methods are action research, case study research, ethnography, and grounded theory. Qualitative data sources include observation and participant observation (fieldwork), interviews and questionnaires, documents and texts, and the researcher's impressions and reactions. Many in the software industry recognize that software development also presents a number of unique management and organizational issues that need to be addressed and solved in order for the field to progress. And this situation has led to studies related not only Empir Software Eng (2011) 16:425-429
doi:10.1007/s10664-011-9163-y fatcat:ialz3obicrg2nnnimvzq4uccu4