Measuring affective states from technical debt: A psychoempirical software engineering experiment

• Context: Software engineering is a human activity. Despite this, human aspects are under-represented in technical debt research, perhaps because they are challenging to evaluate. Objective: This study’s objective was to investigate the relationship between technical debt and affective states (feelings, emotions, and moods) from software practitioners. Method: Forty participants (N = 40) from twelve companies took part in a mixed-methods approach, consisting of a repeated-measures (r = 5) experiment (n = 200), a survey, and semi-structured interviews. From the qualitative data, it is clear that technical debt activates a substantial portion of the emotional spectrum and is psychologically taxing. Further, the practitioners’ reactions to technical debt appear to fall in different levels of maturity. Results: The statistical analysis shows that different design smells (strong indicators of technical debt) negatively or positively impact affective states. Conclusions: We argue that human aspects in technical debt are important factors to consider, as they may result in, e.g., procrastination, apprehension, and burnout.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Sociologi -- Socialpsykologi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Sociology -- Social Psychology (hsv//eng)

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Data- och informationsvetenskap -- Programvaruteknik (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Computer and Information Sciences -- Software Engineering (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Medie- och kommunikationsvetenskap -- Systemvetenskap, informationssystem och informatik med samhällsvetenskaplig inriktning (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Media and Communications -- Information Systems, Social aspects (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Bayesian statistical analysis

Empirical Study

Affective States

Technical Debt

Psychoempirical Software Engineering

Software Development

Affective States

Bayesian statistical analysis

Empirical Study

Psychoempirical Software Engineering

Software Development

Technical Debt

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