Decoding Grounded Theory for Software Engineering

Abstract

Grounded Theory, while becoming increasingly popular in software engineering, is also one of the most misunderstood, misused, and poorly presented and evaluated method in software engineering. When applied well, GT results in dense and valuable explanations of how and why phenomena occur in practice. GT can be applied as a full research method leading to mature theories and also in limited capacity for data analysis within other methods, using its robust open coding and constant comparison procedures. This technical briefing will go through the social origins of GT, present examples of grounded theories developed in SE, discuss the key challenges SE researchers face, and provide a gentle introduction to socio-technical grounded theory, a variant of GT for software engineering research.