Using Case-Based Methods in an Experimental Design: A Mixed-Method Approach for Evaluating Collaboration-Intensive Software Modeling Approaches

Experiments are suitable for studying emerging approaches at Universities by using students as subjects. We identify a problem that the existing experimental designs are not well suited for studying qualitative properties and human factors which cannot be controlled and studied in isolation. On the other hand case studies are well suited for studying those situations. However, case studies are meant to be used to study real life situations and are not suitable for experimental studies with students. To address the problem, we propose an Experiment Embedded with Case-based Methods (EECM) by adding case-based methods to a traditional experimental design. EECM would provide flexibility to the researches for collecting and analyzing data with mixed-methods. We have applied the EECM design for the evaluation of a software reuse approach in a large quasi-experiment with students in the software engineering lecture environment.