Keynote: Survey Research Methods in Software Engineering
Surveys are an important and often used research method in software engineering. However, survey research has been less often discussed within this area on a methodological level than other types of research. Therefore, surveys conducted in software engineering commonly present methodological issues that may compromise the overall research validity. This talk presents the fundamentals of survey research methodology and its best practices. Moreover, lessons learned from facing important and challenging issues – gathered from experiences with several large-scale international surveys – will be discussed. Particular emphasis will be given to survey design and the interplay between survey research and theory building. The topics covered also include best practices and lessons learned regarding sampling, data collection, statistical analysis, qualitative analysis, and considerations on assessing psychological constructs.
Speaker: Marcos Kalinowski is a software engineering scientist who is active as professor and coordinator of the graduate program (M.Sc. and Ph.D. levels) of PUC-Rio’s Department of Informatics. He is the head of the Software Science Lab, which focuses on research concerning experimental software engineering, software quality, and the intersection between software engineering and data science. He also co-coordinates PUC-Rio’s ExACTa R&D initiative for promoting digital transformation of industrial partners. He is a member of the International Software Engineering Research Network (ISERN) and has been active in international research collaborations. Before becoming a professor, he spent more than 10 years working in the software industry (as developer, manager, consultant, and director). His research has in-depth focus on problems and needs of the software industry, received several international honors and awards, and is available in publications in some of the main scientific journals and conferences in the area of software engineering. He serves the community as editor of the In-Practice track and editorial board member of the Journal of Systems and Software and as program committee member of several international conferences.