An empirical assessment of a systematic search process for systematic reviews

Abstract

Background: Systematic Literature Reviews (SLRs) have been gaining significant attention from Software En-gineering (SE) researchers since 2004. Several researches have also working on improving the scientific and techno-logical infrastructure available to support SLRs in SE. Objective: The study reported in this paper aims to vali-date the QGS-based search process for SLR, i.e. whether a more effective and/or productive search can be achieved by following such a systematic process. Method: We used a dual-case study, in which each case includes two observations of SE literature search for the same SLR but using and not using the QGS-based approach. Results: The overall sensitivity and precision of each observation were calculated for the search cases that im-plemented different search design. Conclusions: A systematic search process (QGS-based search in this paper) appears to gain higher sensitivity and precision in the two cases of SLR. Such a search process may help capture more relevant studies as well as save re-viewers ’ time spent in literature search activities. Our ob-servations also proof that an integrated search strategy is recommended for SLRs in SE to avoid the possible limita-tions of applying single manual or automated search. 1

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