Evaluating the Ability of Developers to Use Metamodels in Model-Oriented Development

The applicability of models has evolved throughout the history of software engineering, from documentation, development and beyond. In this context, we study how to employ models for a common language shared by humans and computers. After studying a model-oriented development method for models at run-time systems, we have identified that this method would heavily rely on metamodels. Therefore, it is important to evaluate if developers are able to use metamodels in software development. In this paper we present a controlled experiment to evaluate the ability and efforts of professional and novice developers to effectively use metamodels. Participants of the experiment had access to newly created metamodeling definition tools, as well as standard Java code and UML diagrams in order to complete their tasks. Results indicate that the definition language was easy to be learned by experienced Java developers, who were able to comprehend metamodeling development artifacts without struggling with modeling concepts. We conclude developers would be able to adapt to new modeling concepts and tools as required by different systems that handle models at run-time.