Empirical research in software engineering

Abstract

To cope with the continuous increasing complex- ity and effort spend on development and mainte- nance of software, new tools and techniques are developed by the software engineering community. Often these tools and techniques are claimed to be an improvement. But these claims are usually not accompanied with a thorough explanation of the underlying theory of how and when to apply the tool or technique. Even basic evidence validating the claim, is often absent. This article addresses the need to validate one’s claim. Two empirical re- search methods, especially applicable for evaluating new tools, techniques or practices in the context of software engineering are discussed. Both methods are relatively easy to apply once the obvious pre- conditions are met.