
118 Empirical Research in Software Engineering
4.5.2 Selection of Variables
The selection of appropriate variables is not easy and generally based on the domain knowl-
edge of the researcher. In research, the variables are identied according to the things
being measured. When exploring new topics, for selection of variables a researcher must
carefully analyze the research problem and identify the variables affecting the dependent
variable. However, in case of explored topics, the literature review can also help in identi-
cation of variables. Hence, the selection is based on the researcher’s experience, informa-
tion obtained from existing pub ...