What Do We Know About Software Analytics Research? A Critical Review of Secondary Studies
2026 (English)In: Software Engineering and Advanced Applications: 51st Euromicro Conference, SEAA 2025, Salerno, Italy, September 10–12, 2025, Proceedings, Part II / [ed] Taibi D., Smite D., Springer Science+Business Media B.V., 2026, p. 389-404Conference paper, Published paper (Refereed)
Abstract [en]
Software analytics (SA) is often proposed as a tool to support software engineering (SE) tasks. Several secondary studies on SA have been published, some published within the same calendar year. This presents an opportunity to take a meta-perspective and examine how the field of SA has been conceptualized and synthesized so far. By analyzing how SA is defined, which topics are emphasized, what search strategies are employed, and to what extent primary studies overlap, we aim to identify gaps, trends, and redundancies in the current body of secondary studies. Such insights can inform the design and focus of future secondary studies. We identified five secondary studies on SA published from 2015 to 2023 that cover primary research from 2000 to 2021. Despite similarities in objectives and overlapping search timeframes, the secondary studies have negligible overlap in their included primary studies. Each secondary study presents a distinct perspective, and collectively, the five secondary studies offer a fragmented rather than cohesive view of the research landscape. We present a structured overview of the identified secondary studies in terms of their objectives, research quality, and findings. This overview helps readers navigate and leverage existing research. The analysis also indicates that there is potential for further secondary research to build a more cohesive and comprehensive understanding of the SA literature.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Springer Science+Business Media B.V., 2026. p. 389-404
Series
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, ISSN 0302-9743, E-ISSN 1611-3349 ; 16082
Keywords [en]
Critical Appraisal, Literature Review, Software Analytics, Software Engineering, Tertiary Review, Tertiary Study, 'current, Critical Review, Engineering Tasks, Literature Reviews, Search Strategies, Software Analytic, Synthesised
National Category
Software Engineering
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:bth-28716DOI: 10.1007/978-3-032-04200-2_27ISI: 001677317200027Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-105016626844ISBN: 9783032041999 (print)OAI: oai:DiVA.org:bth-28716DiVA, id: diva2:2003158
Conference
51st Euromicro Conference on Software Engineering and Advanced Applications, SEAA 2025, Salerno, Sept 10-12, 2025
Part of project
GIST – Gaining actionable Insights from Software Testing, Knowledge Foundation
Funder
ELLIIT - The Linköping‐Lund Initiative on IT and Mobile CommunicationsKnowledge Foundation, 202202352025-10-032025-10-032026-03-23Bibliographically approved