An Analysis of Empirical Requirements Engineering Survey Data

The gap between research and practice in requirements engineering is immense. To understand practice and the reasons for this gap, empirical evidence about requirements engineering practice is needed. In the last ten years a number of empirical studies have been conducted to gather such data. This chapter gives an overview focusing on broad surveys. The aim of this overview is to understand the following three issues: (1) what kind of questions can and should we ask to understand practice, (2) what evidence do we have about practice, (3) what further evidence do we need about practice. To further illustrate the issues, we provide findings of new studies conducted by the authors in Germany and Australia. Altogether this chapter aims at establishing a basis for further empirical research on requirements engineering.