Methodological and Practical Challenges in Longitudinal, Large-Scale, Collaborative Questionnaire Survey Research

This paper presents an experience report on the de-sign and deployment of a large-scale, longitudinal questionnaire survey aimed at understanding the factors influencing voluntary job turnover among software professionals. Rather than the specific topic of the study, this paper discusses the main challenges encountered, including the complexities of longitudinal survey design, issues raised by large-scale collaboration, ensuring par-ticipant diversity, measuring industry-specific factors for which good scales do not exist, and managing uncertainties in data collection. By discussing these challenges and our strategies in addressing them, this work aims to encourage large-scale survey research in the field of software engineering, and to provide practically useful advice for implementing such projects.