Paper Info
Title
Measuring the cognitive load of software developers: An extended Systematic Mapping Study
Abstract
Context: Cognitive load in software engineering refers to the mental effort users spend while reading software artifacts. The cognitive load can vary according to tasks and across developers. Researchers have measured developers' cognitive load for different purposes, such as understanding its impact on productivity and software quality. Thus, researchers and practitioners can use cognitive load measures for solving many aspects of software engineering problems.Problem: However, a lack of a classification of dimensions on cognitive load measures in software engineering makes it difficult for researchers and practitioners to obtain research trends to advance scientific knowledge or apply it in software projects.Objective: This article aims to classify different aspects of cognitive load measures in software engineering and identify challenges for further research.Method: We conducted a Systematic Mapping Study (SMS), which started with 4,175 articles gathered from 11 search engines and then narrowed down to 63 primary studies.Results: Our main findings are: (1) 43% (27/63) of the primary studies focused on applying a combination of sensors; (2) 81% (51/63) of the selected works were validation studies; (3) 83% (52/63) of the primary studies analyzed cognitive load while developers performed programming tasks. Moreover, we created a classification scheme based on the answers to our research questions.Conclusion: despite the production of a significant amount of studies on cognitive load in software engineering, there are still many challenges to be solved in this particular field for effectively measuring the cognitive load in software engineering. Therefore, this work provided directions for future studies on cognitive load measurement in software engineering.
Year
DOI
Venue
2021
10.1016/j.infsof.2021.106563
Information and Software Technology
Keywords
DocType
Volume
Cognitive load,Machine learning,Software engineering,Systematic Mapping Study
Journal
136
ISSN
Citations 
PageRank 
0950-5849
1
0.35
References 
Authors
0
3
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Lucian José Gonçales123.07
Kleinner Farias24315.61
Bruno C. da Silva321.37