“Technical Debt: basic concepts, research methods and study design” tutorial

This tutorial will cover the various tools that a empirical software engineering researchers may need to address research questions in the field of Technical Debt.

The first day starts with an introduction to the concept of "Technical Debt", including basic definitions, implications, examples and some research in the area. Then we will see qualitative research methods. After this we will discuss some of the most commonly used methods (at least in software engineering research) for the collection and analysis of qualitative data. Qualitative data are texts (and sometimes images and sound) instead of numbers.

The second day of the tutorial will focus on the design of research studies. Starts with some of the basic principles of study design. Then there will be a workshop in which we will choose open research questions in the area of Technical Debt and will design empirical studies to address these issues.