A Practical Guide to Ethical Research Involving Humans

Background:The concept of code smells is widespread in Software Engineering. Despite the empirical studies addressing the topic, the set of context-dependent issues that impacts the human perception of what is a code smell has not been studied in depth. We call this the code smell conceptualization problem. To discuss the problem, empirical studies are necessary. In this work, we focused on conceptualization of god class. God class is a code smell characterized by classes that tend to centralize the intelligence of the system. It is one of the most studied smells in software engineering literature. Method: A controlled experiment that extends and builds upon a previous empirical study about how humans detect god classes, their decision drivers, and agreement rate. Our study delves into research questions of the previous study, adding visualization to the smell detection process, and analyzing strategies of detection. Result: Our findings show that agreement among participants is low, which corroborates previous studies. We show that this is mainly related to agreeing on what a god class is and which thresholds should be adopted, and not related to comprehension of the programs. The use of visualization did not improve the agreement among the participants. However, it did affect the choice of detection drivers. Conclusion: This study contributes to expand empirical evidences on the impact of human perception on detecting code smells. It shows that studies about the human role in smell detection are relevant and they should consider the conceptualization problem of code smells.

show abstract

“…In order to attend ethical issues on Empirical Software Engineering, we followed principles proposed by (Vinson 2008).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The problem of conceptualization in god class detection: agreement, strategies and decision drivers

Santos

Mendonça

Santos

et al. 2014

J Softw Eng Res Dev

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…This empirical research with the practitioners from the industry should consider several ethical issues, such as informed consent, risks, harms, and benefits from participating in the study (Vinson & Singer, 2008). All ethical issues were considered during the research planning phase, and the participants had been informed about ethical issues before they agreed to participate in the research.…”

Section: Ethical Issuesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Software developers' perceptions of soft skills in software requirements engineering

Zorić¹,

Stojanov²

2018

JEMC

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Software requirements express users' needs and constraints for a software system to be constructed in order to solve some real problems. Both researchers and practitioners from industry point out that well performed requirements related activities have very important role for successful realization of software projects. Software developers work on software requirements jointly with software users. Requirements elicitation and specification are especially important since they require software developers with multidisciplinary skills. These activities require not only technical skills but also non-technical or soft skills. This article presents a qualitative study with software developers aimed at inquiring how they perceive soft skills in software requirements activities. The study involved 14 software developers, who were interviewed. Data analysis, based on inductive thematic analysis, resulted in three themes that reflect software developers' perceptions about soft skills. The study findings revealed that software developers are aware of soft skills, recognize the need to improve them and understand their importance in everyday practice. Implications of the research findings for researchers, software developers and managers in software organizations are discussed.

show abstract

“…Moreover, in order to attend ethical issues on Empirical Software Engineering, we followed principles proposed by (Vinson and Singer 2008).…”

Section: Acknowledgementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Investigating factors that affect the human perception on god class detection: an analysis based on a family of four controlled experiments

Santos

Rocha-Junior

Mendonça

2017

J Softw Eng Res Dev

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Context:Evaluation of design problems in object oriented systems, which we call code smells, is mostly a human-based task. Several studies have investigated the impact of code smells in practice. Studies focusing on human identification of code smells have shown low agreement among developers. Unfortunately, those studies do not attempt to investigate the reasons behind this phenomenon. Objective: This paper aims to investigate factors affecting human perception of code smells. Specifically, it focuses on factors affecting god class detection, one of the most known code smells. Method: The investigation encompassed a family of four controlled experiments, covering potential factors affecting human detection of code smells. The method is incremental. In other words, each experiment produces insights to the next one. This allows the investigators to control specific factors affecting the agreement on god class detection. The factors addressed in this study are: i) developer experience, ii) developer knowledge, iii) developer training, iv) tool support for design comprehension, and v) software size. Result: Our findings show that tool support for design comprehension is the only factor that does not affect the human perception of god class. The other factors impact this perception in some way. Conclusion: The area still needs more investigation and discussion on what we call the code smell conceptualization problem, to ensure similar criteria and thresholds on human-based code smell detection.

show abstract

A Practical Guide to Ethical Research Involving Humans

Cited by 33 publications

References 27 publications

The problem of conceptualization in god class detection: agreement, strategies and decision drivers

The problem of conceptualization in god class detection: agreement, strategies and decision drivers

Software developers' perceptions of soft skills in software requirements engineering

Investigating factors that affect the human perception on god class detection: an analysis based on a family of four controlled experiments

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About