Teaching Empirical Software Engineering at Eindhoven University of Technology

Abstract

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In this chapter, we share an experience report of teaching a master course on empirical research methods at Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands. The course is taught for ten weeks to a mix of students from different study programs and combines both practical assignments with a closed-book exam. We discuss the challenges of teaching a course on research methods and explain how we address these challenges in the course design. Additionally, we share our lessons learned and the challenges we encountered over several iterations of teaching the course.

Materials

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The files in these folders accompany the book chapter “Teaching Empirical Methods at Eindhoven University of Technology”. The book chapter gives an overview of Empirical Methods in Software Engineering, a master course taught to the computer science & engineering students of Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands. Below an overview of all of the materials included in this supplement is given:

Syllabus

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The syllabus of the 2023/2024 edition as it was available to the students. It contains the lecture schedule, the requirements for each of the assignments, and an overview of the primary sources on which the course has been based.

Exams

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Both the original exam (Exam) and the resit exam (Resit) for three academic years (21/22, 22/23, 23/24) are available. Each of these exams also contained, as appendix, a short paper with the threats to validity section redacted. The mapping of papers to exams is included as the following table:

Exam 21/22

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Resit Exam 21/22

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Exam 22/23

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Resit Exam 22/23

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Exam 23/24

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Resit Exam 23/24

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Slides

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The slides of (some) of the lectures.

Introduction

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Research Questions and Strategies

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Sampling

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Interviews/Surveys

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Quantitative Analysis

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Inferring Demographics

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Threats

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Licensing

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