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Confounding parameters on program comprehension: a literature survey

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Abstract

Program comprehension is an important human factor in software engineering. To measure and evaluate program comprehension, researchers typically conduct experiments. However, designing experiments requires considerable effort, because confounding parameters need to be controlled for. Our aim is to support researchers in identifying relevant confounding parameters and select appropriate techniques to control their influence. To this end, we conducted a literature survey of 13 journals and conferences over a time span of 10 years. As result, we created a catalog of 39 confounding parameters, including an overview of measurement and control techniques. With the catalog, we give experimenters a tool to design reliable and valid experiments.

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Notes

  1. ICPC was a workshop until 2005.

  2. ESEM originated 2007 from merging the International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering (ISESE) and International Software Metrics Symposium (METRICS)

  3. VLHCC was called Human-Centric Computing Languages and Environments until 2003.

  4. CHASE first took place in 2008.

  5. url http://www.infosun.fim.uni-passau.de/spl/janet/confounding/index.php

  6. In Section 5, we discuss techniques and parameters in detail. Here, we give only an overview.

  7. There are voices that say intelligence is rather something learned than something inborn. Thus, we could also classify it as individual knowledge. However, since our classification aims at a better overview, we do not step into this discussion.

  8. There are controversial discussion about the magical number seven (Baddeley 2001).

  9. The specific contents of courses depend on the country and specific university.

  10. For examples of all identified parameters for specific experiments, see the first author’s PhD thesis (Siegmund 2012).

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Acknowledgments

Thanks to Norbert Siegmund and Christian Kästner for helpful discussions. Thanks to all reviewers for their constructive feedback. Thanks to Raimund Dachselt for his encouragement to write this article. Thanks to Andreas Meister for his support in selecting relevant papers.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Passau, Passau, Germany

    Janet Siegmund

  2. Leipzig, Germany

    Jana Schumann

Authors
  1. Janet Siegmund
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Janet Siegmund.

Additional information

Communicated by: Andrian Marcus

This author published previous work as Janet Feigenspan.

Appendix

Appendix

In Tables 10 and 11, we give a summary of how each parameter was measured in literature.

Table 10 Measurement techniques of individual confounding parameters
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Table 11 Measurement techniques of experimental confounding parameters
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The checklist in Table 12 can help researchers to control the influence of confounding parameters. Researchers can document how they measured and controlled for a parameter.

Table 12 Checklist of confounding parameters
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Siegmund, J., Schumann, J. Confounding parameters on program comprehension: a literature survey. Empir Software Eng 20, 1159–1192 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10664-014-9318-8

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