Naturalistic Inquiry and Requirements Engineering: Reconciling Their Theoretical Foundations

A growing awareness of the need to take into account social and contextual factors requirements engineering (RE) has led to expanded use of naturalistic inquiry (NI) methods, such as ethnography, for capturing relevant data. There is little debate about the potential value of NI to the development of systems; however, most previous discussions have emphasized practical techniques and benefits. Less attention has been given to the ontological and epistemological commitments that a naturalistic research paradigm assume and the extent to which these assumptions conflict with those that pervade RE practice. In this paper we present the axioms that NI. In each case we address both the points of agreement and tension that arise when these axioms are compared with the implicit assumptions upon which RE practice and research methods are based. We illustrate the discussion with specific examples from published sources and our experience.