Member Checking in Software Engineering Research: Lessons Learned from an Industrial Case Study

Abstract

Context. Member checking can be defined as a research phase performed during a qualitative research in which the researcher compares her interpretations and understanding obtained from the data analysis with the view-points of participants to increase accuracy and consistency of results. This is an important step for any qualitative research. However, considering a sample of 66 case studies developed and published in the context of software engineering, only 10 studies briefly described the use of this technique. Method. In this article, we present a set of lessons learned obtained from planning and performing member checking to validate the results of an industrial case study performed in a large software company. Results. Member checking was effective to validate the findings obtained from the qualitative case study and was also useful to reveal important information not observed in the data analysis process. It has also shown to be effective to observe divergences among different groups of participants. Conclusion. We described how the member checking can be performed, and discussed seven lessons learned in this process. We expect that our experience can be useful to software engineering researchers while performing this research phase in case studies.