Relevant information in TDD experiment reporting

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: Uyaguari, Fernando, Acuña, Silvia T., Castro, John W., Fucci, Davide, Dieste, Oscar, Vegas, Sira
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2024
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author Uyaguari, Fernando
Acuña, Silvia T.
Castro, John W.
Fucci, Davide
Dieste, Oscar
Vegas, Sira
author_facet Uyaguari, Fernando
Acuña, Silvia T.
Castro, John W.
Fucci, Davide
Dieste, Oscar
Vegas, Sira
contents Experiments are a commonly used method of research in software engineering (SE). Researchers report their experiments following detailed guidelines. However, researchers do not, in the field of test-driven development (TDD) at least, specify how they operationalized the response variables and the measurement process. This article has three aims: (i) identify the response variable operationalization components in TDD experiments that study external quality; (ii) study their influence on the experimental results;(ii) determine if the experiment reports describe the measurement process components that have an impact on the results. Sequential mixed method. The first part of the research adopts a quantitative approach applying a statistical análisis (SA) of the impact of the operationalization components on the experimental results. The second part follows on with a qualitative approach applying a systematic mapping study (SMS). The test suites, intervention types and measurers have an influence on the measurements and results of the SA of TDD experiments in SE. The test suites have a major impact on both the measurements and the results of the experiments. The intervention type has less impact on the results than on the measurements. While the measurers have an impact on the measurements, this is not transferred to the experimental results. On the other hand, the results of our SMS confirm that TDD experiments do not usually report either the test suites, the test case generation method, or the details of how external quality was measured. A measurement protocol should be used to assure that the measurements made by different measurers are similar. It is necessary to report the test cases, the experimental task and the intervention type in order to be able to reproduce the measurements and SA, as well as to replicate experiments and build dependable families of experiments.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2406_06405
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Relevant information in TDD experiment reporting
Uyaguari, Fernando
Acuña, Silvia T.
Castro, John W.
Fucci, Davide
Dieste, Oscar
Vegas, Sira
Software Engineering
Experiments are a commonly used method of research in software engineering (SE). Researchers report their experiments following detailed guidelines. However, researchers do not, in the field of test-driven development (TDD) at least, specify how they operationalized the response variables and the measurement process. This article has three aims: (i) identify the response variable operationalization components in TDD experiments that study external quality; (ii) study their influence on the experimental results;(ii) determine if the experiment reports describe the measurement process components that have an impact on the results. Sequential mixed method. The first part of the research adopts a quantitative approach applying a statistical análisis (SA) of the impact of the operationalization components on the experimental results. The second part follows on with a qualitative approach applying a systematic mapping study (SMS). The test suites, intervention types and measurers have an influence on the measurements and results of the SA of TDD experiments in SE. The test suites have a major impact on both the measurements and the results of the experiments. The intervention type has less impact on the results than on the measurements. While the measurers have an impact on the measurements, this is not transferred to the experimental results. On the other hand, the results of our SMS confirm that TDD experiments do not usually report either the test suites, the test case generation method, or the details of how external quality was measured. A measurement protocol should be used to assure that the measurements made by different measurers are similar. It is necessary to report the test cases, the experimental task and the intervention type in order to be able to reproduce the measurements and SA, as well as to replicate experiments and build dependable families of experiments.
title Relevant information in TDD experiment reporting
topic Software Engineering
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2406.06405