Items tagged with: Threats_to_Validity

Terms

• Threats to validity
• Conclusion validity
• Internal validity
• Construct validity
• External validity
• Representativeness
• Subject
• Subject selection
• Subject characteristic
• Subject group
• Process
• Pretest
• Training
• Replication
• Artifact
• Environment
• Instrumentation
• Metric
• Observation
• Data collection
• Statistical test

Definitions

• External validity: "The external validity is concerned with generalization. If there is a causal relationship between the construct of the cause, and the effect, can the result of the study be generalized outside the ..."
• Artifact: "Software artifacts are objects used in the experiment. They can be characterized by size, complexity, priority, application domain, etc. "
• Subject group: "when the sample is divided, we have subject groups "
• Subject: "A person which is taking part in an empirical study in order to evaluate an object."
• Subject selection: "a sample from a population"
• Process: "describes which activities that are needed to produce the software "
• Pretest: "activities which precede the execution of the experiment "
• Training: "Phase where the subjects are trained in the methods to be used. "
• Replication: "The replication of an experiment involves repeating the investigation under similar conditions, while for example, varying the subject population. "
• Environment: "Related to where the experiment is performed (desktop, laboratory, real life)."
• Instrumentation: "The instruments used in the experiment (objects, guidelines, and measurement instruments)."
• Metric: "A Metric denotes an entity which is measured, for example, lines of code (LOC) is a product metric. "
• Data collection: "Phase where the data is collected. Data can be collected either manually by participants or automatically by tools."
• Statistical test: "evaluates the outcome of an experiment "
• Conclusion validity: "This validity is concerned with the relationship between the treatment and the outcome. We want to make sure that there is a statistical relationship, i.e. with a given significance. Threats to co..."
• Subject characteristic: "particularities (specificities) of each subject"
• Observation: "investigates how software engineers conduct a certain task"
• Construct validity: "This validity is concerned with the relation between theory and observation. If the relationship between cause and effect is causal, we must ensure two things: 1) that the treatment reflected the ..."
• Internal validity: "If a relationship is observed between the treatment and the outcome, we must make sure that it is a causal relationship, and that it is not a result of a factor of which we have no control or have ..."