Case Study Research in Software Engineering: Guidelines and Examples

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

1.1 WHAT IS A CASE STUDY?

The term “case study” appears every now and then in the title of software engineering research papers. These papers have in common that they study a specific case, in contrast to a sample from a specified population. However, the presented studies range from very ambitious and well-organized studies in the field of operations (in vivo) to small toy examples in a university lab (in vitro) that claim to be case studies. This variation creates confusion, which should be addressed by increased knowledge about case study methodology.

Case study is a commonly used research strategy in areas such as psychology, sociology, political science, social work, business, and community planning (e.g., [162, 196, 217]). In these areas, case studies are conducted with the objectives of not only increasing knowledge (e.g., knowledge about individuals, groups, and organizations and about social, political, and related phenomena) but also bringing about change in the phenomenon being studied (e.g. improving education or social care). Software engineering research has similar high-level objectives, that is, to better understand how and why software engineering should be undertaken and, with this knowledge, to seek to improve the software engineering process and the resultant software products.

There are different taxonomies used to classify research in software engineering. The term case study is used in parallel with terms like field study and observational ...