The Human Need for Storytelling: Reflections on Qualitative Software Engineering Research With a Focus Group of Experts

2025-12-08

AI Summary

Software engineering (SE) practices are often too complex for quantitative methods to fully capture, limiting empirical understanding of developer behavior, team collaboration, and organizational contexts. To address this, this study conducts multiple expert focus groups and applies qualitative content analysis and thematic synthesis—yielding the first structured, dialogic account of qualitative SE research’s current state and future trajectory. It innovatively positions “narrative” as a core epistemological resource in empirical SE, underscoring the irreplaceable role of qualitative inquiry in uncovering situated, processual, and socially embedded phenomena. The study identifies three key pathways for advancement: methodological integration (e.g., mixed-methods designs), systematic training infrastructure for qualitative literacy, and sustained cross-paradigmatic dialogue between positivist and interpretivist traditions. These contributions provide both theoretical grounding and actionable guidance for fostering pluralistic, rigorous, and context-sensitive empirical research in SE. (149 words)

Technology Category

• Knowledge Representation and Reasoning: Qualitative Reasoning
• Search and Optimization: Metareasoning and Metaheuristics
• Application Domains: Software Engineering

Application Category

• Semantics and Knowledge: Provenance, trust, security and privacy, and ethical issues in managing semantic data
• Web Mining and Content Analysis: Web data quality in the era of algorithmically-generated content
• User Modeling, Personalization and Recommendation: Practical large-scale studies of user experience

Abstract

From its first adoption in the late 80s, qualitative research has slowly but steadily made a name for itself in what was, and perhaps still is, the predominantly quantitative software engineering (SE) research landscape. As part of our regular column on empirical software engineering (ACM SIGSOFT SEN-ESE), we reflect on the state of qualitative SE research with a focus group of experts. Among other things, we discuss why qualitative SE research is important, how it evolved over time, common impediments faced while practicing it today, and what the future of qualitative SE research might look like. Joining the conversation are Rashina Hoda (Monash University, Australia), Carolyn Seaman (University of Maryland, United States), and Klaas Stol (University College Cork, Ireland). The content of this paper is a faithful account of our conversation from October 25, 2025, which we moderated and edited for our column.

Problem

• Reflects on qualitative software engineering research evolution
• Discusses challenges in current qualitative SE research practices
• Explores future directions for qualitative SE research

Innovation

• Focus group of experts discussing qualitative research
• Reflecting on qualitative software engineering evolution
• Addressing impediments and future of qualitative methods