How do Practitioners Perceive the Relevance of Requirements Engineering Research? An Ongoing Study

TL;DR

This study investigates how industry practitioners perceive the practical relevance of Requirements Engineering research through a global survey of practitioners rating 418 papers from major conferences.

Contribution

It introduces an empirical, survey-based approach to assess practitioners' perceptions of RE research relevance across multiple domains and conferences.

Findings

Survey ongoing, results pending

Replicates previous studies in new domains

Aims to inform future RE research relevance

Abstract

The relevance of Requirements Engineering (RE) research to practitioners is a prerequisite for problem-driven research in the area and key for a long-term dissemination of research results to everyday practice. To better understand how industry practitioners perceive the practical relevance of RE research, we have initiated the RE-Pract project, an international collaboration conducting an empirical study. This project opts for a replication of previous work done in two different domains and relies on survey research. To this end, we have designed a survey to be sent to several hundred industry practitioners at various companies around the world and ask them to rate their perceived practical relevance of the research described in a sample of 418 RE papers published between 2010 and 2015 at the RE, ICSE, FSE, ESEC/FSE, ESEM and REFSQ conferences. In this paper, we summarise our research protocol and present the current status of our study and the planned future steps.