Framework for evaluation and validation of software complexity measures

Abstract

This study proposes a framework for the evaluation and validation of software complexity measure. This framework is designed to analyse whether or not software metric qualifies as a measure from different perspectives. Unlike existing frameworks, it takes into account the practical usefulness of the measure and includes all the factors that are important for theoretical and empirical validation including measurement theory. The applicability of the framework is tested by using cognitive functional size measure. The testing process shows that in the same manner the proposed framework can be applied to any software measure. A comparative study with other frameworks has also been performed. The results reflect that the present framework is a better representation of most of the parameters that are required to evaluate and validate a new complexity measure.