Towards a framework for normative software engineering research

The authors present a framework for research in SE (software engineering) as a first step towards formulating a common shared research methodology for the development of normative theories. The effectiveness of this framework is demonstrated by applying it to some current normative research in the application of artificial intelligence to SE. One advantage of using this framework is that it forces a research effort to explicitly state its underlying theory in addition to describing its implementation; thus, it is much easier to determine the validity and generalizability of the research effort