An ecological perspective towards the evolution of quantitative studies in software engineering
Rafael de Mello, Guilherme Horta Travassos · 2013
Context: Two of the most common external threats to validity in quantitative studies in software engineering (SE) are concerned with defining the population by convenience and nonrandom sampling assignment. Although these limitations can be reduced by increasing the number of replications and aggregating their results, the acquired evidence rarely can be generalized to the field.