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Classroom Practice with Learning Support System for Program Design Using Mock Technique Based on Testability

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Abstract

The importance of automated testing skills for programmers has increased in recent software development. However, novice programmers have few opportunities to learn how to design software components suited to automated testing. Therefore, we constructed a learning support system that can conduct an exercise to analyze and improve program design from the viewpoint of testability. However, our previous system did not support design improvement using mock techniques, and test target components to be practiced are limited. Furthermore, component design with mock techniques is related to learning object-oriented design concepts. It is an important element for learners to perform their software development using the test-driven development (TDD) approach. Therefore, in this study, we extended the system to support learning for designing the test target component using mock techniques. We experimented with the learning effect of the system on supporting learners to analyze and improve the design of the test target component using mock techniques. We also confirmed the system’s applicability by introducing it into a TDD exercise in a real classroom.

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The research data is stored at Shizuoka University. Due to the universities privacy policy, the research data cannot be shared.

Abbreviations

TDD:

Test-Driven Development

UML:

Unified Modeling Language

OOD:

Object-Oriented Design

IDE:

Integrated Development Environment

API:

Application Programming Interface

TLS:

Testability Learning System

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the participants of the study.

Funding

This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number JP18K11566 / JP22K12311.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Graduate School of Integrated Science and Technology, Shizuoka University, 3-5-1 Johoku, Naka-ku, Hamamatsu, Shizuoka, 432-8561, Japan

    Masaya Muramatsu

  2. Faculty of Informatics, Shizuoka University, 3-5-1 Johoku, Naka-ku, Hamamatsu, Shizuoka, 432-8011, Japan

    Yasuhiro Noguchi, Satoru Kogure & Tatsuhiro Konishi

  3. Faculty of Business Administration, Tokoha University, 1230 Miyakoda, Kita-ku, Hamamatsu, Shizuoka, 431-2102, Japan

    Koichi Yamashita

  4. Shizuoka University, 3-5-1 Johoku, Naka-ku, Hamamatsu, Shizuoka, 432-8011, Japan

    Yukihiro Itoh

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Contributions

The initial manuscript draft was written by the first and the second author but was reviewed and revised multiple times and complemented in conjunction with the co-authors. The data analysis was mainly executed by the first author, with close support from the second and fourth authors. All authors participated in the definitive cross-checking of the emerging results. All the authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Yasuhiro Noguchi.

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Muramatsu, M., Noguchi, Y., Kogure, S. et al. Classroom Practice with Learning Support System for Program Design Using Mock Technique Based on Testability. SN COMPUT. SCI. 4, 624 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42979-023-02096-2

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