Towards a Methodology for Participant Selection in Software Engineering Experiments. A Vision of the Future
This work tackles the issue of external validity in software engineering research, but it is incremental as it builds on existing guidelines and proposes a roadmap rather than presenting a fully validated method.
The paper addresses the problem of participant selection in software engineering experiments, which currently relies on purposive or convenience sampling and limits result generalizability, by outlining a new methodology that defines population characteristics, locates sampling sources, and reduces sample-population distance.
Background. Software Engineering (SE) researchers extensively perform experiments with human subjects. Well-defined samples are required to ensure external validity. Samples are selected \textit{purposely} or by \textit{convenience}, limiting the generalizability of results. Objective. We aim to depict the current status of participants selection in empirical SE, identifying the main threats and how they are mitigated. We draft a robust approach to participants' selection. Method. We reviewed existing participants' selection guidelines in SE, and performed a preliminary literature review to find out how participants' selection is conducted in SE in practice. % and 3) we summarized the main issues identified. Results. We outline a new selection methodology, by 1) defining the characteristics of the desired population, 2) locating possible sources of sampling available for researchers, and 3) identifying and reducing the "distance" between the selected sample and its corresponding population. Conclusion. We propose a roadmap to develop and empirically validate the selection methodology.