Effectiveness of software testing techniques in enterprise: a case study

The validity and reliability of research.
The objective of our research is to explore the most 
critical issues related with software testing in specific areas, as we discussed before. To achieve this 
objective the experts interview method is used for collect research data. As this method belongs to 

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qualitative methodology, the objective approach should be followed (Yin, 2012). Firstly, according to 
Bryman & Bell (2011), "derived findings through qualitative research rely considerably on the 
researcher and its assessment". To avoid the subject interpretations of research findings, we use the 
mixed qualitative and quantitative methodologies by analyzing our findings with statistical documents 
as we discussed before in more detailed. Secondly, to ensure the objectivity of experts, we asked to 
provide formal answers as representative person of all team. In addition, to conduct the valid research, 
it is essential to elicit the appropriate experts so that all of them would have the common knowledge on 
the same field, such as: social, financial, physical areas (Kardelis, 2007). Thus, the main criteria for 
selection of experts have been applied: bachelor or higher degree on IT field, more than 3 years 
experience as a QA test specialist and not less than 1 year experience in the current team of selected 
enterprise, one or two expert corresponding each R&D team. We seek to conduct data from all R&D 
teams that consist of 2-3 QA test specialists in average, only one team has one test specialist. After 
evaluation of the characteristics of all QA test specialists (16 employees), 7 experts have been selected 
for our research. Only one selected expert did not satisfy all criteria (overall experience as a test 
specialist is 2 years), however he was selected as the best expert corresponding his team comparing 
with other team members. We will seek to get the wider observations from experts as they are 
professionals on their field.
The selected experts have been introduced into our research purpose and problem. And all of the 
7 experts agreed to take a part in our research. After one week they received the semi-structural 
questionnaire. The questionnaire was provided online (http://www.questionpro.com/). The 
interviewers provided the answers after 3 days. Some of answers were not fully answered so we asked 
to add more insights in specific questions. After all questionnaires were completed we analyzed data 
by both the online tool (http://www.questionpro.com/) and MS Office Excel.