Polítiques d’autonomia i segregació escolar

Cross Sectional

The time frame is already established according to which

to complete the research.

the data has to be collected. Longitudinal Collection of data repeatedly over

an extended time period and is used where an important factor is being examined over a change of time (Goddard et al., 2004). 6. Data Collection There are a variety of ways through which data can be collected. In quantitative methodology, the researcher is focused on measuring variables or counts their occurrence. Whereas in qualitative methodology, the research emphasises on the experience of a phenomena.

Primary Data Refers to data that is derived from first-hand sources such as data collected through interviews, direct observation, participant observation, questionnaires and surveys. Secondary

Data

Data is derived from the work or opinions of other researchers (Newman, 1988). For example archival records, organisational documentation, publications and annual reports.

3.3 Research Methodology used to Design Distributed Agile Patterns

In this section we have focused on the how we have used Saunders research onion in order to conduct our research (Saunders et al., 2007).

3.3.1 Research Philosophy

Based on the definition of research philosophy mentioned in Table 3.1 we have used Realism research philosophy for conducting our research. Since the focus of this research is to understand how practitioners develop projects offshore while using agile practices. We are studying these variables in the real-life events. This is reflected throughout our research methodology mentioned in Figure 1.1 Research Methodology.

As from Step 1: Review Previous Literature, we are focusing on identifying case studies that demonstrate how practitioners are using developing software at offshore location in order to formulate our research questions, which is Step 2 of our research methodology that is to Identify and Define the Research Problem.

In order to conduct Step 3: Collect Data from Literature and Interviews, to identify recurring agile practices that are being used by practitioners to overcome challenges in offshore development, we focused on examining the how and why practitioners chose to adapt an agile practices and if that solution has been used recurrently to solve the same offshore challenge by other practitioners.

In Step 4: Analysing Data Collected from Literature and Interviews, we used Krippendorff’s content analysis (Krippendorff, 2004). Since the data being analysed was based on real-life events in order to explain how practitioners adapted agile practices for their offshore projects, hence this reflects our research philosophy of realism.

Based on the data collected in Step 3 and the analyses done in Step 4. We designed our Distributed Agile Pattern Catalogue. As Step 3 and Step 4 were conducted using real-life data from events, the pattern catalogue is based on patterns observed from literature and by practitioners. Hence Step 5: Design and Develop Distributed Agile Patterns Catalogue has been done following the realism research philosophy.

Step 6: Validate and Evaluate the Distributed Agile Patter Catalogue we involved experts to review our pattern catalogue and based on their feedback Step 7: Modify the Catalogue to Improve the Results is conducted in which we have modified our catalogue.

Based on the overview of each step of our research methodology it is evident that the research philosophy chosen by us for this research is realism.

3.3.2 Research Approach

As mentioned in Table 3.1 there are two types of research approaches that are Deductive and Inductive. The research approach used for this research is Inductive. As the research started by reviewing the previous literature on Global Software Development at mentioned in Figure 1.1 Research Methodology’s Step 1: Review Previous Literature. In that step we focused on studying cases in literature to identify what are the challenges in Global Software development and based on that study we defined our research problem and formulated our research questions, which is Step 2: Identify and Define Research Problem.

To further refine our research problem we conducted Step 3: Collect Data from Literature Review and Interviews, to identify how specific challenges in offshore software development affect the application of agile practices and we moved towards developing generic distributed agile patterns that practitioners could use while planning to move their processes to offshore locations.

In Step 4: Analysing Data Collected from Literature and Interviews, we go into more detail by using Krippendorff’s content analysis approach to analyse the data we collected in Step 3, to get meaningful information (Krippendorff, 2004). Content Analysis is a research tool used to determine the presences of certain words or concepts within text or set of texts. Researchers use it to quantify and analyse the presences of meaning and relationship of words and concepts. They are usually used for the following purposes:

• Reveal internal differences in communication context. • Detect the existence of propaganda.

• Identify the intentions, focus or communication trends of an individual, group

or institutions’.

• Describe attitudinal and behavioural responses to communication.

• Determine psychological or emotional state of a person or group of people.

The reason we selected this approach was to identify the trends of global software development and understand the attitudinal behaviour of offshore development and how it effects the adoption of agile in offshore projects. There are two types of content analysis, conceptual and relational, defined below (Writing @CSU, 2004):

• Conceptual Analysis: They only focus of finding the existence and frequency of

a text/word but do not focus on if that text/word has any relation with words around it.

• Relational Analysis: It is one step further from conceptual analysis and it

focuses on examining the relationships among concepts in a text and it also identifies words that have similar meaning.

For the purpose of our research we have used relational analysis as we are not only focusing on counting the frequency of “Global Software Development” rather we also

consider its relationship with agile development and we also considered words with similar meaning. Table 3.2 shows our selected key concepts and their similar meaning.

Table 3.2: Key Concepts Selected for Relational Analysis.

Type Key Concepts Similar Meaning

1 Global Software Development Global Software Engineering