A Hands-On Approach for Teaching Systematic Review

Abstract

An essential part of a software engineering education is technology innovation. Indeed software engineers, as future practitioners, must be able to identify the most appropriate technologies to adopt in projects. As so, it is important to develop the skills that will allow them to evaluate and make decisions on tools, technologies, techniques and methods according to the available empirical evidence reported in literature. In this sense, a rigorous manner for analyzing and critically addressing literature is Systematic Review. It requires formalizing an answerable research question according to the problem or issues to face; search the literature for available evidence according to a systematic protocol and retrieve data from the identified sources; analyze the collected evidence and use it to support decision making and conclusions. In this paper we report on how Systematic Review has been integrated in the "Empirical Software Engineering Methods" course that is taught at the Department of Informatics at the University of Bari, and how students have been introduced to this type of literature review through a hands-on approach. As far as we know, it is the first attempt of including a complex topic like systematic review in a university course on empirical software engineering. We have no empirical evidence on the effectiveness of the approach adopted, other than practice-based experience that we have acquired. Nonetheless, we have collected qualitative data through a questionnaire submitted to the students of the course. Their positive answers and impressions are a first informal confirmation of the successful application of our strategy

Secondary studies in the academic context: A systematic mapping and survey

“…Only 4 studies (14.2%) assessed the use of EBSE by SLR experts (S10 [7]; S11 [25]; S15 [12]; S19 [32]). Some categories that were identified are strongly related, for instance, [18]; S4 [19]; S5 [20]; S6 [21]; S8 [23]; S10 [7]; S12 [26]; S13 [27]; S22 [34]; S23 [35]; S24 [36]; S25 [37]; S26 [9]; and S27 [38] Journal 9 (32.1%) -S7 [22]; S11 [25]; S14 [28]; S15 [12]; S17 [30]; S18 [31]; S19 [32]; S21 [8]; and S28 [39] Symposium 4 (14.2%) -S1 [16]; S9 [24]; S16 [29]; and S20 [33] undergraduate and Masters (e.g. S16 [29]); Masters and Ph.Ds.…”

“…Total of studies -Studies ID (B1) Developing research skills 5 -S1 [16]; S2 [17]; S8 [23]; S20 [33]; S22 [34] (B2) Encouraging students to reflect 5 -S2 [17]; S8 [23]; S14 [28]; S24 [36]; S25 [37] (B3) Helping find out research opportunities 3 -S9 [24]; S15 [12]; S24 [36] (B4) Providing an overview of the literature 5 -S12 [26]; S15 [12]; S20 [33]; S22 [34]; S24 [36] (B5) Perceiving the importance of searching for evidence 6 -S4 [19]; S5 [20]; S7 [22]; S8 [23]; S9 [24]; S22 [34] (B6) Acquiring experience of reading/understanding scientific studies 5 -S1 [16]; S2 [17]; S8 [23]; S15 [12]; S25 [37] (B7) Learning from studies and getting knowledge 4 -S9 [24]; S15 [12]; S20 [33]; S25 [37] (B8) Publishing a paper 1 -S9 [24] (B9) Providing baselines to assist new research efforts 3 -S15 [12]; S15 [12]; S24 [36] (B10) Collaborating with other researchers (teamwork) 2 -S17 [30]; S26 [9] inclusion/exclusion criteria (S6, S10, S12, S13, S14, S16, S19, S21, S27), that are only faced by students due to their limited experience with secondary studies in particular and with research in general.…”

Statistical Control of Software Process: A Systematic Review

“…To conduct a systematic review of statistical control of process in software engineering the protocol presented in Brereton, Kitchenham, Budgen, Turner, and Khalil (2005) was followed, and the guidelines for systematic reviews of Kitchenham (2007), along with other published systematic reviews, such as that of Baldassarre, Boffoli, Caivano, and Visaggio (2008), Pino, García, and Piattini (2007), and Genero, Fernández, Nelson, and Piattini (2011).…”

“…The starting point is to understand whether SPC can be used in software and its contribution to the solution of the existing problems in software process monitoring, from four general patterns proposed by Baldassarre, Boffoli, Caivano, and Visaggio (2008) and Caivano (2000), who determined a guideline for the use of control charts in software, monitoring methods for the detection of anomalies, stability tests, and adjustments to make. SPC becomes a requirement for improving the quality of the processes.…”

Systematic Review Checklist

“…The systematic review framework from evidence‐based medicine has been successfully utilized in other disciplines, such as ecology (Gates 2002) and software engineering (Baldassarre et al 2008). Similarly, we propose a checklist of essential topics to assist in designing, conducting, and reporting systematic reviews in LCA.…”