[go: up one dir, main page]
More Web Proxy on the site http://driver.im/
Skip to main content

Action Research as Research Methodology in Software Engineering

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Action Research in Software Engineering

Abstract

Compared to other research methodologies, action research is probably the youngest one. It’s been introduced in the middle of the twentieth century and has gained attention ever since. It became popular because it appeals to both researchers and organizations who seek impact and utilization of scientific results in practice. In this chapter, we present the principles of action research and provide concrete guidelines on how to propose an action research project. We elaborate on the main parts of the action research methodology and exemplify them. We show how we can use experiment systems to involve customers in action research, and we finish the chapter by presenting how to manage action research projects.

If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?

—A. Einstein

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Subscribe and save

Springer+ Basic
£29.99 /Month
  • Get 10 units per month
  • Download Article/Chapter or eBook
  • 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
  • Cancel anytime
Subscribe now

Buy Now

Chapter
GBP 19.95
Price includes VAT (United Kingdom)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
GBP 35.99
Price includes VAT (United Kingdom)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
GBP 44.99
Price includes VAT (United Kingdom)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
GBP 64.99
Price includes VAT (United Kingdom)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. David Avison, Richard Baskerville, and Michael Myers. Controlling action research projects. Information technology & people, 14(1):28–45, 2001.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. David E. Avison, Francis Lau, Michael D. Myers, and Peter Axel Nielsen. Action research. Commun. ACM, 42(1):94–97, January 1999.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Vard Antinyan, Miroslaw Staron, Anna Sandberg, and Jörgen Hansson. Validating software measures using action research a method and industrial experiences. In Proceedings of the 20th International Conference on Evaluation and Assessment in Software Engineering, page 23. ACM, 2016.

    Google Scholar 

  4. Richard Baskerville. Educing Theory from Practice, pages 313–326. Springer US, Boston, MA, 2007.

    Google Scholar 

  5. Eytan Bakshy, Dean Eckles, and Michael S Bernstein. Designing and deploying online field experiments. In Proceedings of the 23rd international conference on World wide web, pages 283–292. ACM, 2014.

    Google Scholar 

  6. Jan Bosch. Building products as innovation experiment systems. In Software Business, pages 27–39. Springer, 2012.

    Google Scholar 

  7. Victor R Basili-Gianluigi Caldiera and H Dieter Rombach. Goal question metric paradigm. Encyclopedia of software engineering, 1:528–532, 1994.

    Google Scholar 

  8. Paulo Sergio Medeiros Dos Santos and Guilherme Horta Travassos. Action research can swing the balance in experimental software engineering. In Advances in computers, volume 83, pages 205–276. Elsevier, 2011.

    Google Scholar 

  9. Aleksander Fabijan, Pavel Dmitriev, Helena Holmström Olsson, and Jan Bosch. The benefits of controlled experimentation at scale. In Software Engineering and Advanced Applications (SEAA), 2017 43rd Euromicro Conference on, pages 18–26. IEEE, 2017.

    Google Scholar 

  10. Fabian Fagerholm, Alejandro Sanchez Guinea, Hanna Mäenpää, and Jürgen Münch. Building blocks for continuous experimentation. In Proceedings of the 1st international workshop on rapid continuous software engineering, pages 26–35. ACM, 2014.

    Google Scholar 

  11. Ron Kohavi, Roger Longbotham, Dan Sommerfield, and Randal M Henne. Controlled experiments on the web: survey and practical guide. Data mining and knowledge discovery, 18(1):140–181, 2009.

    Google Scholar 

  12. Ulf Melin and Karin Axelsson. Action in action research–illustrations of what, who, why, where, and when from an e-government project. In International Conference on Electronic Government, pages 44–55. Springer, 2007.

    Google Scholar 

  13. Wilhelm Meding. Effective monitoring of progress of agile software development teams in modern software companies: an industrial case study. In Proceedings of the 27th International Workshop on Software Measurement and 12th International Conference on Software Process and Product Measurement, pages 23–32. ACM, 2017.

    Google Scholar 

  14. Davison Robert, Martinsons Maris G., and Kock Ned. Principles of canonical action research. Information Systems Journal, 14(1):65–86.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Eric Ries. The lean startup: How today’s entrepreneurs use continuous innovation to create radically successful businesses. Crown Books, 2011.

    Google Scholar 

  16. Colin Robson. Real world research, volume 3. Wiley Chichester, 2011.

    Google Scholar 

  17. Anna Börjesson Sandberg and Ivica Crnkovic. Meeting industry: Academia research collaboration challenges with agile methodologies. In Proceedings of the 39th International Conference on Software Engineering: Software Engineering in Practice Track, pages 73–82. IEEE Press, 2017.

    Google Scholar 

  18. Gerald I Susman and Roger D Evered. An assessment of the scientific merits of action research. Administrative science quarterly, pages 582–603, 1978.

    Google Scholar 

  19. Dag IK Sjøberg, Jo Erskine Hannay, Ove Hansen, Vigdis By Kampenes, Amela Karahasanovic, N-K Liborg, and Anette C Rekdal. A survey of controlled experiments in software engineering. IEEE transactions on software engineering, 31(9):733–753, 2005.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Dan Siroker and Pete Koomen. A/B testing: The most powerful way to turn clicks into customers. John Wiley & Sons, 2013.

    Google Scholar 

  21. Miroslaw Staron and Wilhelm Meding. Software Development Measurement Programs: Development, Management and Evolution. Springer, 2018.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  22. Anna Sandberg, Lars Pareto, and Thomas Arts. Agile collaborative research: Action principles for industry-academia collaboration. IEEE software, 28(4):74–83, 2011.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Miroslaw Staron. Automotive Software Architectures: An Introduction. Springer, 2017.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  24. Diane Tang, Ashish Agarwal, Deirdre O’Brien, and Mike Meyer. Overlapping experiment infrastructure: More, better, faster experimentation. In Proceedings of the 16th ACM SIGKDD international conference on Knowledge discovery and data mining, pages 17–26. ACM, 2010.

    Google Scholar 

  25. Claes Wohlin, Per Runeson, Martin Höst, Magnus C Ohlsson, Björn Regnell, and Anders Wesslén. Experimentation in software engineering. Springer, 2012.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2020 Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Staron, M. (2020). Action Research as Research Methodology in Software Engineering. In: Action Research in Software Engineering. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32610-4_2

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32610-4_2

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-32609-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-32610-4

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics