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exploratory testing studies

@jamesmarcusbach: I have seen a few studies of exploratory testing that were scientifically respectable, but none of those used the term "exploratory testing"

@Rob_Lambert: Care to share the scientifically respectable studies? Genuinely interested to find out how they studied ET.

@jamesmarcusbach: Study #1: See the book "Exploring Science." It is the chronicle of a group of experiments in figuring out technology.

@jamesmarcusbach: See Jerry Weinberg's 1965 Ph.D. dissertation on exploratory problem-solving: http://bit.ly/KTXML

@jamesmarcusbach: See Okada and Simon's study of collaborative problem-solving. Notice the subjects are testing software: http://bit.ly/2QMudl

@jamesmarcusbach: See Lucy Suchman's research, documented in "Plans and Situated Actions"

@jamesmarcusbach: See Mary Reilly's book "Play as Exploratory Learning"

@jamesmarcusbach: See "Exploratory Research in the Behavioral Sciences"

@jamesmarcusbach: See Egon Guba's "Naturalistic Inquiry"

@jamesmarcusbach: No one in the computer field who has investigated ET "scientifically" appears to be aware of these studies!

@jamesmarcusbach: Don't forget Polya's "How to Solve It", and definitely Google "symbolic interactionism" and "ethnomethodology."

@jamesmarcusbach: All you have to do is read and analyze this stuff, and you will go far. Faaaaarrrrr.

@jamesmarcusbach: A lot of these studies have to do with what happens when we encounter objects and try to make sense of them.

@jamesmarcusbach: That is the KEY to ET: making sense of things by interacting with them. Of course, that's what scientists do with nature.

@michaelbolton: "Sensemaking in Organizations" (Weick) cites a large number of studies of exploratory learning.

@michaelbolton: A HUGE problem with ET studies: bugs are not objective things to count, but relationships. GOOD science here needs qualitative analysis.

@michaelbolton: Some more books on exploratory approaches: Cognition in the Wild (Hutchins); The Social Life of Information (Duguid & Brown)

@michaelbolton: Some more books on exploratory approaches: Exploring Requirements (Weinberg); A System of Logic and Ratiocination (J.S. Mill)

@michaelbolton: See Mill's five Canons: The Method of Agreement; the Method of Difference; the Joint Method of Agreement and Difference; The Method of Residues; and The Principle of Concomitant Variation. We all use 'em; we may not recognize it.

@jamesmarcusbach: Just bought two more books related to exploratory learning (and testing): Radical Embodied Cognitive Science is one of them. Cool title!

@jamesmarcusbach: The other one is "Causation and Counterfactuals" a surprisingly readable book about untangling causes and effects