Qualitative software engineering research -- reflections and guidelines
This work helps software engineering researchers improve human-centric studies by adopting more diverse qualitative methods, but it is incremental as it builds on existing guidelines from social sciences.
The paper addresses the limited use of qualitative methods in software engineering research by extending knowledge on available methods and providing guidelines for their application, resulting in recommendations for broader method adoption, increased reflexivity, and use of quality criteria.
Researchers are increasingly recognizing the importance of human aspects in software development. Since qualitative methods are used to explore human behavior in-depth, we believe that studies using such methods will become more common. Existing qualitative software engineering guidelines do not cover the full breadth of qualitative methods and the knowledge on how to use them like in social sciences. The purpose of this study was to extend the software engineering community's current body of knowledge regarding available qualitative methods and their quality assurance frameworks, and to provide recommendations and guidelines for their use. With the support of an epistemological argument and a survey of the literature, we suggest that future research would benefit from (1) utilizing a broader set of research methods, (2) more strongly emphasizing reflexivity, and (3) employing qualitative guidelines and quality criteria. We present an overview of three qualitative methods commonly used in social sciences but rarely seen in software engineering research, namely interpretative phenomenological analysis, narrative analysis, and discourse analysis. Furthermore, we discuss the meaning of reflexivity in relation to the software engineering context and suggest means of fostering it. Our paper will help software engineering researchers better select and then guide the application of a broader set of qualitative research methods.