Developer experience · Full-text observational qualitative empirical study
Beyond Code Generation: An Observational Study of ChatGPT Usage in Software Engineering Practice
ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology · 2024
Summary
Practitioners more often sought guidance or learning than ready-to-use software artifacts; simple artifact generation and brainstorming were useful, complex tasks were harder; about two-thirds expressed high or moderate trust but none trusted outputs entirely, and lack of sources reduced trust. For a founder, use this as a question to test in your own context, not a universal playbook.
For your marketing
Possible founder application
Treat this as evidence for the specific customer behavior and adoption question studied. Compare the setting and sample to your company before changing a growth decision; use a local experiment where the paper does not match your context.
Reported result
What the study found
Practitioners more often sought guidance or learning than ready-to-use software artifacts; simple artifact generation and brainstorming were useful, complex tasks were harder; about two-thirds expressed high or moderate trust but none trusted outputs entirely, and lack of sources reduced trust.
Research question
What the authors investigated
How do professional software engineers use ChatGPT in daily work, and what factors shape perceived usefulness and trust?
Design
One-week observational study; qualitative analysis of ChatGPT dialogue logs and exit-survey reflections; framework organized around interaction purpose, internal factors and external factors.
Sample and setting
24 professional software engineers at 10 companies in Europe, using GPT-3.5 over five business days.
Scope and transfer
Limitations to keep in view
Limited, Europe-centered nonrepresentative sample; inductive dialogue classification has subjectivity; conducted before ChatGPT Enterprise, so privacy/security effects of that service were not assessed.
Research sources
Publisher DOI record and accessible article/abstract directly support the bibliographic record and the summary fields; editorial review remains appropriate for duplicate checking against the unseen 300-study library. Correction notices were not separately verified in this collection; consult the current publisher record before applying the findings.