Entity-Relationship and Object-Oriented Data Modeling-an Experimental Comparison of Design Quality

We compare EER and OO data models from the point of view of design quality. Quality is measured in terms of (a) correctness of the conceptual schemas being designed, (b) time to complete the design task, and (c) designers' preferences of the models. Result of an experimental comparison of the two models reveal that the EER model surpasses the OO model for designing unary and ternary relationships, it takes less time to design EER schemas, and the EER model is preferred by designers. We conclude that even if the objective is to implement an OO database schema, the recommended procedure is to: (1) create an EER conceptual scheme, (2) map it to an OO schema, and augment the target schema with behavioral constructs that are unique to the OO approach.