Student or educator? Sign up with your school email and get 6 months of Pro free.
CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 245

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 232 of the 232 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

The ABC of Software Engineering Research

Stol, Klaas-Jan, Fitzgerald, Brian·2018·ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology
DOI 10.1145/3241743
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

A variety of research methods and techniques are available to SE researchers, and while several overviews exist, there is consistency neither in the research methods covered nor in the terminology used. Furthermore, research is sometimes critically reviewed for characteristics inherent to the methods. We adopt a taxonomy from the social sciences, termed here the ABC framework for SE research, which offers a holistic view of eight archetypal research strategies. ABC refers to the research goal that strives for generalizability over Actors (A) and precise measurement of their Behavior (B), in a realistic Context (C). The ABC framework uses two dimensions widely considered to be key in research design: the level of obtrusiveness of the research and the generalizability of research findings. We discuss metaphors for each strategy and their inherent limitations and potential strengths. We illustrate these research strategies in two key SE domains, global software engineering and requirements engineering, and apply the framework on a sample of 75 articles. Finally, we discuss six ways in which the framework can advance SE research.

Overview

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1145/3241743

Cites

232 of 232 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Verification

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Citations

Cites

Show all 232 references

Research works printed but not linked: 20

  1. 10.5555/9775.9777 · doi:10.5555/9775.9777
  2. Y. Dittrich . 2000 . Beg, borrow, and steal—But what, and what for? In Workshop: Beg, Borrow, or Steal: Using Multidisciplinary Approaches in Empirical Software Engineering Research (co-located with ICSE’00) . Y. Dittrich. 2000. Beg, borrow, and steal—But what, and what for? In Workshop: Beg, Borrow, or Steal: Using Multidisciplinary Approaches in Empirical Software Engineering Research (co-located with ICSE’00).
  3. 10.5555/823456.823983 · doi:10.5555/823456.823983
  4. N. Fenton and S. L. Pfleeger . 1997 . Software Metrics: A Rigorous and Practical Approach (2nd (revised printing) ed.) . PWS Publishing Company . N. Fenton and S. L. Pfleeger. 1997. Software Metrics: A Rigorous and Practical Approach (2nd (revised printing) ed.). PWS Publishing Company.
  5. B. G. Glaser. 1978. Theoretical Sensitivity. Sociology Press. B. G. Glaser. 1978. Theoretical Sensitivity. Sociology Press.
  6. J. Tisseau . 2008 . In vivo, in vitro, in silico, in virtuo . In 1st Workshop on SMA in Biology at Meso or Macroscopic Scales. J. Tisseau. 2008. In vivo, in vitro, in silico, in virtuo. In 1st Workshop on SMA in Biology at Meso or Macroscopic Scales.
  7. 10.5555/590564.590578 · doi:10.5555/590564.590578
  8. J. Ma , J. Li , W. Chen , R. Conradi , J. Ji , and C. Liu . 2008 . A state-of-the-practice study on communication and coordination between Chinese software suppliers and their global outsourcers. Software Process Improve . Pract. 13 , 3 (2008), 233 -- 247 . J. Ma, J. Li, W. Chen, R. Conradi, J. Ji, and C. Liu. 2008. A state-of-the-practice study on communication and coordination between Chinese software suppliers and their global outsourcers. Software Process Improve. Pract. 13, 3 (2008), 233--247.
  9. J. E. McGrath . 1964 . Social Psychology: A Brief Introduction. Holt, Rinehart and Winston. J. E. McGrath. 1964. Social Psychology: A Brief Introduction. Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
  10. J. E. McGrath . 1964. Towards a “Theory of Method ” for research on organizations. In New Perspectives in Organization Research, W. Cooper, H. Leavitt, and M. Shelly (Eds.). John Wiley 8 Sons, New York, 533--556. J. E. McGrath. 1964. Towards a “Theory of Method” for research on organizations. In New Perspectives in Organization Research, W. Cooper, H. Leavitt, and M. Shelly (Eds.). John Wiley 8 Sons, New York, 533--556.
  11. E. R. McLean . 1973 . Comments on empirical studies of management information systems by Richard L . Van Horn. Data Base 5 , 2 (1973), 181 -- 182 . E. R. McLean. 1973. Comments on empirical studies of management information systems by Richard L. Van Horn. Data Base 5, 2 (1973), 181--182.
  12. M. Müller and D. Pfahl. 2008. Simulation methods. In Guide to Advanced Software Engineering F. Shull J. Singer and D. I. K. Sjøberg (Eds.). Springer-Verlag London Limited. M. Müller and D. Pfahl. 2008. Simulation methods. In Guide to Advanced Software Engineering F. Shull J. Singer and D. I. K. Sjøberg (Eds.). Springer-Verlag London Limited.
  13. 10.1109/MS.2009.184 · DOI
  14. D. Raffo and S.-O. Setamanit . 2005 . A simulation model for global software development project . In Proc. 6th International Workshop on Software Process Simulation and Modeling (ProSim’05) . Fraunhofer IRB Verlag. D. Raffo and S.-O. Setamanit. 2005. A simulation model for global software development project. In Proc. 6th International Workshop on Software Process Simulation and Modeling (ProSim’05). Fraunhofer IRB Verlag.
  15. 10.5555/2361717 · doi:10.5555/2361717
  16. 10.1007/s10009-002-0083-4 · DOI
  17. 10.5465/amr.1979.4498309 · DOI · Paper page
  18. J. Tisseau . 2001. Virtual Reality: In virtuo autonomy . University of Rennes I . J. Tisseau. 2001. Virtual Reality: In virtuo autonomy. University of Rennes I.
  19. G. H. Travassos and M. de Oliveira Barros. 2003. Contributions of in virtuo and in silico experiments for the future of empirical studies in software engineering . In Proc. 2nd Workshop on Empirical Software Engineering. G. H. Travassos and M. de Oliveira Barros. 2003. Contributions of in virtuo and in silico experiments for the future of empirical studies in software engineering. In Proc. 2nd Workshop on Empirical Software Engineering.
  20. E. J. Webb , D. T. Campbell , R. D. Schwartz , and L. Sechrest . 1966 . Unobtrusive Measures: Nonreactive Research in the Social Sciences. Rand-McNally. E. J. Webb, D. T. Campbell, R. D. Schwartz, and L. Sechrest. 1966. Unobtrusive Measures: Nonreactive Research in the Social Sciences. Rand-McNally.

Cited by

See all 245

Metadata

Authors
Stol, K.-J., & Fitzgerald, B.
Venue
ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology
Publisher
Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
Published
2018-07-31
Volume
27
Issue
3
Pages
1-51
ISSN
  • 1049-331X
  • 1557-7392
DOI
10.1145/3241743
Cited by
245
References
232
Language
en
Licence
www.acm.org/publications/policies/copyright_policy#Background (vor)
Funders
Science Foundation Ireland (15/SIRG/3293, 13/RC/2094)

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review

How to cite

Cite CoChat for the checks on this page, and the paper for its own findings.

This page
CoChat. (2026). Citation check: The ABC of Software Engineering Research. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1145/3241743
The paper
Stol, K.-J., & Fitzgerald, B. (2018). The ABC of Software Engineering Research. ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology. https://doi.org/10.1145/3241743

Data sources

Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.

Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).

Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.