Socio-technical resilience in software development (STRIDE)
Lead Research Organisation:
Lancaster University
Department Name: Psychology
Abstract
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People |
ORCID iD |
| Mark Levine (Principal Investigator) |
Publications
| Title | STRIDE CW 2022.pdf |
| Description | Preliminary results from the STRIDE project survey on RSE identity and resilience. |
| Type Of Art | Film/Video/Animation |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| URL | https://ssi-cw.figshare.com/articles/presentation/STRIDE_CW_2022_pdf/19447457 |
| Description | We have been studying socio-technical resilience in software development through research on Research Software Engineers (RSE). The RSE identity/role is a newly emerging professional identity coined to provide visibility and status for those doing software engineering work in a research context. We explore the way concepts from Social Psychology (like identification with the group; individual differences in threat management) can help us understand resilience in the context of development of software for research teams. Using surveys of Research Software Engineers (N=381) and analysis of Reddit posts using Natural Language Processing, we explore different aspects of software engineering identity, threat management and socio-technical resilience more generally. Our analysis is still ongoing, but we have evidence that: a) Identification with an RSE professional identity has a positive relationship with resilience, autonomy and general professional satisfaction of software engineers. Greater identification with the RSE identity predicts greater autonomy, greater resilience, and more positive professional outcomes - including success, satisfaction, meaningfulness, and team communication - and that autonomy and resilience each mediate the effect of social identification on these outcomes. b) In terms of individual differences in threat management style, RSE's tend to orient towards rather than away from threats. We find greater identification predicts anxious attachment, and that anxious attachment predicts higher reported resilience and autonomy, whereas avoidant attachment predicts lower levels of autonomy and learning. We are currently exploring the implications of these findings for developing strategies to improve social technical resilience for software engineers We are also beginning to use other approaches (NLP studies of online text data from software engineers) to better understand the nature of software engineering identities and the kinds of threats and challenges they face |
| Exploitation Route | This will be the focus of the next phase of our research work |
| Sectors | Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software) |
| URL | https://stride.org.uk |
| Description | Exploration of RSE Autonomy |
| Organisation | University of Oxford |
| Department | Department of Computer Science |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Quantitative findings from a survey of RSEs' on their self-reported level of autonomy. Expertise from the STRIDE team. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Qualitative research expanding on the STRIDE team's quantitative outcomes to better understand RSEs' perception of their level of professional autonomy. |
| Impact | Research in-progress. Outcomes will be relevant to the development of the RSE profession, e.g., within universities. This research is multi-disciplinary: Psychology (University of Lancaster) and Computer Science (University of Oxford). |
| Start Year | 2022 |
| Description | RSE Community Survey Participation |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Over 500 research software engineers were reached through various channels, including a blog post post on the Software Sustainability Institute's website and engagement through the RSE slack space among others, who participated in a survey on psychological as well as other components of RSE work, including levels of autonomy and resilience and attitudes towards automation. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021,2022 |
| URL | https://www.software.ac.uk/news/call-survey-participants-who-do-software-engineering-research |