Views on Internal and External Validity in Empirical Software Engineering

Resource type
Conference Paper
Authors/contributors
Title
Views on Internal and External Validity in Empirical Software Engineering
Abstract
Empirical methods have grown common in software engineering, but there is no consensus on how to apply them properly. Is practical relevance key? Do internally valid studies have any value? Should we replicate more to address the tradeoff between internal and external validity? We asked the community how empirical research should take place in software engineering, with a focus on the tradeoff between internal and external validity and replication, complemented with a literature review about the status of empirical research in software engineering. We found that the opinions differ considerably, and that there is no consensus in the community when to focus on internal or external validity and how to conduct and review replications.
Date
May 2015
Proceedings Title
2015 IEEE/ACM 37th IEEE International Conference on Software Engineering
Conference Name
2015 IEEE/ACM 37th IEEE International Conference on Software Engineering
Volume
1
Pages
9-19
Library Catalogue
IEEE Xplore
Extra
ISSN: 1558-1225
Citation
Siegmund, J., Siegmund, N., & Apel, S. (2015). Views on Internal and External Validity in Empirical Software Engineering. 2015 IEEE/ACM 37th IEEE International Conference on Software Engineering, 1, 9–19. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICSE.2015.24