Using Experience Sampling to link Software Repositories with Emotions and Work Well-Being

TL;DR

This study applies experience sampling in a software engineering context to explore how developers' emotions relate to their work well-being and repository activity, revealing unexpected negative correlations.

Contribution

It introduces experience sampling methodology to software engineering and links emotional states with repository data, an approach not previously used in this domain.

Findings

Negative relationship between hurry and number of commits

Social interaction correlates with better work well-being

Counter-intuitive link between perceived hurry and productivity

Abstract

Background: The experience sampling method studies everyday experiences of humans in natural environments. In psychology it has been used to study the relationships between work well-being and productivity. To our best knowledge, daily experience sampling has not been previously used in software engineering. Aims: Our aim is to identify links between software developers self-reported affective states and work well-being and measures obtained from software repositories. Method: We perform an experience sampling study in a software company for a period of eight months, we use logistic regression to link the well-being measures with development activities, i.e. number of commits and chat messages. Results: We find several significant relationships between questionnaire variables and software repository variables. To our surprise relationship between hurry and number of commits is negative, meaning more perceived hurry is linked with a smaller number of commits. We also find a negative relationship between social interaction and hindered work well-being. Conclusions: The negative link between commits and hurry is counter-intuitive and goes against previous lab-experiments in software engineering that show increased efficiency under time pressure. Overall, our work is an initial step in using experience sampling in software engineering and validating theories on work well-being from other fields in the domain of software engineering.