research-article

Testing Education: A Survey on a Global Scale

Authors:

Silvana M. Melo,

Veronica X. S. Moreira,

Leo Natan Paschoal,

Simone R. S. SouzaAuthors Info & Claims

SBES '20: Proceedings of the XXXIV Brazilian Symposium on Software Engineering

Pages 554 - 563

https://doi.org/10.1145/3422392.3422483

Published: 21 December 2020 Publication History

Abstract

[Background]: The software industry has a high demand for professionals in the software quality area. However, computing students, in general, leave the university with little or no knowledge in software testing. [Aim] Although previous studies have investigated how software testing is covered in universities, they focus on pedagogical approaches, trends, and technologies for improving the educational process, and do not evaluate in-depth the contents explored. This article addresses a worldwide perspective on the way educators both deal with the software testing subject, materials and details covered, support mechanisms and teaching practices applied, and challenges imposed, and evaluate instruments. [Method] A survey with questions was conducted with software testing professors from April to June 2020 towards investigating the way the subject is taught in the classroom. [Results] Most higher education institutions address the fundamental software testing techniques and criteria, with more completeness in specific than general software engineering courses. Additional findings and discussions are presented in detail throughout the paper. [Conclusion] This study provides a comprehensive overview of the software testing education field from educators' perspectives. We strongly believe it is useful for the understanding of the actual scenario of the topic, provides foundations and directions to new research, guides educators into subjects' conduction and identification of potential weaknesses and solutions to recurrent problems.

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Cited By

Showler AMiljanovic MBradbury JStone JYuen TShoop LRebelsky SPrather J(2025)How Effective and Efficient are Student-Written Software Tests?Proceedings of the 56th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 110.1145/3641554.3701809(1057-1063)Online publication date: 12-Feb-2025
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3641554.3701809
Coleman BSommer N(2024)Fostering a Testing Mindset through Automated Feedback on Multiple Submissions Using Git-keeper2024 IEEE International Conference on Software Testing, Verification and Validation Workshops (ICSTW)10.1109/ICSTW60967.2024.00066(349-353)Online publication date: 27-May-2024
https://doi.org/10.1109/ICSTW60967.2024.00066
Haldar SPierce MCapretz L(2024)Factors Influencing the Performance of Students in Software Automated Test Tools Course2024 IEEE International Conference on Software Testing, Verification and Validation Workshops (ICSTW)10.1109/ICSTW60967.2024.00064(331-339)Online publication date: 27-May-2024
https://doi.org/10.1109/ICSTW60967.2024.00064
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Index Terms

Testing Education: A Survey on a Global Scale
1. Social and professional topics
  1. Professional topics
    1. Computing education
      1. Computing education programs
        Software engineering education
2. Software and its engineering
  1. Software creation and management
    1. Software verification and validation

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cover image ACM Other conferences

SBES '20: Proceedings of the XXXIV Brazilian Symposium on Software Engineering

October 2020

901 pages

ISBN:9781450387538

DOI:10.1145/3422392

General Chairs:
Everton Cavalcante
UFRN, Brazil
,
Francisco Dantas
UERN, Brazil
,
Thais Batista
UFRN, Brazil

Copyright © 2020 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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SBC: Brazilian Computer Society

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 21 December 2020

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Research-article
Research
Refereed limited

Funding Sources

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo
Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico
Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior
PROPP/UFGD

Conference

SBES '20

SBES '20: 34th Brazilian Symposium on Software Engineering

October 21 - 23, 2020

Natal, Brazil

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Overall Acceptance Rate 147 of 427 submissions, 34%

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Cited By

Showler AMiljanovic MBradbury JStone JYuen TShoop LRebelsky SPrather J(2025)How Effective and Efficient are Student-Written Software Tests?Proceedings of the 56th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 110.1145/3641554.3701809(1057-1063)Online publication date: 12-Feb-2025
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3641554.3701809
Coleman BSommer N(2024)Fostering a Testing Mindset through Automated Feedback on Multiple Submissions Using Git-keeper2024 IEEE International Conference on Software Testing, Verification and Validation Workshops (ICSTW)10.1109/ICSTW60967.2024.00066(349-353)Online publication date: 27-May-2024
https://doi.org/10.1109/ICSTW60967.2024.00066
Haldar SPierce MCapretz L(2024)Factors Influencing the Performance of Students in Software Automated Test Tools Course2024 IEEE International Conference on Software Testing, Verification and Validation Workshops (ICSTW)10.1109/ICSTW60967.2024.00064(331-339)Online publication date: 27-May-2024
https://doi.org/10.1109/ICSTW60967.2024.00064
Tramontana PMarín BPaiva AMendes AVos TAmalfitano DCammaerts FSnoeck MFasolino A(2024)State of the Practice in Software Testing Teaching in Four European Countries2024 IEEE Conference on Software Testing, Verification and Validation (ICST)10.1109/ICST60714.2024.00015(59-69)Online publication date: 27-May-2024
https://doi.org/10.1109/ICST60714.2024.00015
Paschoal LRuiz JSouza S(2023)An Open Educational Resource Supporting Mutation Testing TeachingProceedings of the XXII Brazilian Symposium on Software Quality10.1145/3629479.3629496(291-300)Online publication date: 7-Nov-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3629479.3629496
Barrett APaul Enoiu EAfzal W(2023)On the Current State of Academic Software Testing Education in Sweden2023 IEEE International Conference on Software Testing, Verification and Validation Workshops (ICSTW)10.1109/ICSTW58534.2023.00073(397-404)Online publication date: Apr-2023
https://doi.org/10.1109/ICSTW58534.2023.00073
Song X(2022)Application Research of CDIO Education Initiative in Reforming Online-Offline Hybrid Teaching of "Software Testing" Course2022 IEEE International Conference on Teaching, Assessment and Learning for Engineering (TALE)10.1109/TALE54877.2022.00052(270-275)Online publication date: Dec-2022
https://doi.org/10.1109/TALE54877.2022.00052
Kamthan PShahmir N(2022)On the Educational and Professional Implications of Integrating Mind Mapping in Software Testing2022 International Conference on Computational Science and Computational Intelligence (CSCI)10.1109/CSCI58124.2022.00335(1859-1865)Online publication date: Dec-2022
https://doi.org/10.1109/CSCI58124.2022.00335
Shinzato FPaiva DCagin MCafeo BFontão A(2021)So you’ve graduated college and need to test apps: What barriers might you face?Proceedings of the XX Brazilian Symposium on Software Quality10.1145/3493244.3493264(1-9)Online publication date: 8-Nov-2021
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Martins LBezerra CCosta HMachado I(2021)Smart prediction for refactorings in the software test codeProceedings of the XXXV Brazilian Symposium on Software Engineering10.1145/3474624.3477070(115-120)Online publication date: 27-Sep-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3474624.3477070
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