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Methodology Support in CASE Tools and Its Impact on Individual Acceptance and Use: A Controlled Experiment

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Abstract

This paper reports the results of a controlled experiment undertaken to investigate whether the methodology support offered by a CASE tool does have an impact on the tool’s acceptance and actual use by individuals.Subjects used the process modelling tool SPEARMINT to complete a partial process model and remove all inconsistencies. Half the subjects used a variant of SPEARMINT that corrected consistency violations automatically and silently, whilst the other half used a variant of SPEARMINT that told them about inconsistencies both immediately and persistently but without automatic correction. Measurement of acceptance and prediction of actual use was based on the technology acceptance model, supplemented by beliefs about consistency rules. The impact of form of automated consistency assurance applied or hierarchical consistency rules was found to be significant at the 0.05 level with a type I error of 0.027, explaining 71.6% of the variance in CASE tool acceptance. However, intention to use and thus predicted use was of the same size for both variants of SPEARMINT, whereas perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use were affected contrarily.Internal validity of the findings was threatened by validity and reliability issues related to beliefs about consistency rules. Here, further research is needed to develop valid constructs and reliable scales. Following the experiment, a small survey among experienced users of SPEARMINT found that different forms of automated consistency assurance were preferred depending on individual, consistency rule, and task characteristics. Based on these findings, it is recommended that vendors should provide CASE tools with adaptable methodology support, which allow their users to fit automated consistency assurance to the task at hand.

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  1. Hessische Zentrale für Datenverarbeitung (HZD), Postfach 3164, 65021, Wiesbaden, Germany

    Jörg Zettel

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  1. Jörg Zettel
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Correspondence to Jörg Zettel.

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This work originates from the author’s time at the Fraunhofer Institute or Experimental Software Engineering (IESE), Sauerwiesen 6, 67661 Kaiserslautern, Germany.

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Zettel, J. Methodology Support in CASE Tools and Its Impact on Individual Acceptance and Use: A Controlled Experiment. Empir Software Eng 10, 367–394 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10664-005-1287-5

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