观察性研究的方法论问题
Methodological Issues in Observational Studies
摘要：
背景从20世纪60年代开始，从业者和研究人员一直在寻找方法来实证研究新技术，如检查新方法，工具或实践的有效性。出于这个目的，经验软件工程领域开始识别不同的经验方法，从医学，生物学和心理学等各个领域借用它们。目前，各种各样的经验方法被广泛应用于软件工程中，从受控和准受控实验到案例研究，从系统的文献综述到新引入的多领域文献综述。然而，到目前为止，证明任何因果关系的唯一可用方法是对照实验。目标.本论文的目的是为实证软件工程中的因果关系研究引入新的方法。方法.其他领域使用观察性研究来证明因果关系。它们允许观察风险因素的影响并进行测试，而不试图改变谁暴露于或不暴露于风险因素。例如，通过观察性研究，可以观察污染对森林生长的影响或不同因素对开发生产力的影响，而无需等待多年的森林生长或使开发人员暴露于特定的处理。结论在这篇论文中，我们的目的是定义一种方法，用于观察性研究的经验软件工程，提供指导方针，如何进行这样的研究，如何分析数据，以及如何报告的研究本身。
英文摘要：
Background. Starting from the 1960s, practitioners and researchers have looked for ways to empirically investigate new technologies such as inspecting the effectiveness of new methods, tools, or practices. With this purpose, the empirical software engineering domain started to identify different empirical methods, borrowing them from various domains such as medicine, biology, and psychology. Nowadays, a variety of empirical methods are commonly applied in software engineering, ranging from controlled and quasi-controlled experiments to case studies, from systematic literature reviews to the newly introduced multivocal literature reviews. However, to date, the only available method for proving any cause-effect relationship are controlled experiments. Objectives. The goal of the thesis is introducing new methodologies for studying causality in empirical software engineering. Methods. Other fields use observational studies for proving causality. They allow observing the effect of a risk factor and testing this without trying to change who is or is not exposed to it. As an example, with an observational study it is possible to observe the effect of pollution on the growth of a forest or the effect of different factors on development productivity without the need of waiting years for the forest to grow or exposing developers to a specific treatment. Conclusion. In this thesis, we aim at defining a methodology for applying observational studies in empirical software engineering, providing guidelines on how to conduct such studies, how to analyze the data, and how to report the studies themselves.
机构、总结、中文摘要均由AI分析而来，可能存在错误，请以论文正文为准。
