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Investigation of individual factors impacting the effectiveness of requirements inspections: a replicated experiment

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Abstract

This paper presents a replication of an empirical study regarding the impact of individual factors on the effectiveness of requirements inspections. Experimental replications are important for verifying results and investigating the generality of empirical studies. We utilized the lab package and procedures from the original study, with some changes and additions, to conduct the replication with 69 professional developers in three different companies in Turkey. In general the results of the replication were consistent with those of the original study. The main result from the original study, which is supported in the replication, was that inspectors whose degree is in a field related to software engineering are less effective during a requirements inspection than inspectors whose degrees are in other fields. In addition, we found that Company, Experience, and English Proficiency impacted inspection effectiveness.

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Acknowledgment

We thank the employees and management of the companies for their participation. We thank Jorge L. Diaz-Herrera, Mustafa Akgül and Duygu Albayrak, Erhan Yüceer, David Davenport for helping the education survey. We thank Natalia Juristo for comments on the paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Technology and Information Systems, Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey

    Özlem Albayrak

  2. Department of Computer Science, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL, USA

    Jeffrey C. Carver

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  1. Özlem Albayrak
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  2. Jeffrey C. Carver
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Correspondence to Jeffrey C. Carver.

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Editor: Filippo Lanubile

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Albayrak, Ö., Carver, J.C. Investigation of individual factors impacting the effectiveness of requirements inspections: a replicated experiment. Empir Software Eng 19, 241–266 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10664-012-9221-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10664-012-9221-0

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