The Emerging Role of Software Testing in Curricula

Abstract

In order to produce quality products, companies require new engineering students that have good problem solving, debugging, and analysis skills. Many graduates enter the work force with exceptional development skills, but lack proficiency in test, debugging, and analysis skills. This is in part because academic curricula emphasize development at the expense of teaching software testing as a formal engineering discipline. The majority of curricula today emphasize the initial phases of a development life cycle, namely: requirements gathering, architecture design, and implementation. The skills which are retained in this area of test are often learned ad-hoc while working on solutions for an implementation-oriented course. The lack of formal test education among graduates forces industry to spend substantial resources to properly educate graduates in the art and science of software testing. The contribution of this paper to the literature includes an evaluation of software testing as an industry profession, a survey of current curricula guidelines, a survey of software testing education in practice today, and a discussion of ongoing efforts to advance the status of software testing in academic curricula through a novel, crowd-sourced, industry-expert, approach to software test education.

Collaborative web-based learning of testing tools in SE courses

“…Astigarraga et al [2] present a study that evaluates software testing as an industry profession and discusses ongoing efforts to advance the status of software testing in academic curricula. The conclusion of the paper recommends changes to the curricula that focus more on test courseware, journals, societies and education opportunities for software test engineering.…”

“…The training of software developers continues to grow in academia since more institutions are offering software engineering (SE) courses. The literature states that most software engineers in industry are not educated in key portions of the SE body of knowledge, including testing [2,19].…”

“…The list of topics that are expected to be covered in SE courses leaves little or no time for topics that focus on developing quality software, such as software testing [2]. Testing continues to be the primary technique used to ensure the development of high quality software, but recent studies [6] indicate that major improvements in software testing are needed.…”

Abordagem flipped classroom em comparação com o modelo tradicional de ensino: uma investigação empírica no âmbito de Teste de Software

“…Apesar de sua importância ser algo já confirmado, estudos vêm relatando que o mercado de trabalho está sofrendo com a falta de recursos humanos qualificados e com a disponibilização de mão de obra para atuar na área, uma vez que os egressos de cursos superiores de computação estão adentrando no mercado de trabalho com conhecimento muito limitado sobre o assunto [Astigarraga et al 2010] e o meio acadêmico não está conseguindo atender satisfatoriamente à demanda existente [Barbosa et al 2007]. …”

Integrating Testing into Software Engineering Courses Supported by a Collaborative Learning Environment

“…These approaches range from the integration of testing into CS1 and CS2 using novel approaches, such as test-driven learning (TDL) and test-driven development (TDD), to the restructuring of more advanced CS/IT courses to include a software testing component. Lethbridge et al [2007] state that more academic institutions are offering courses in software engineering (SE), which is a good thing; however, more needs to be done to expose students to software testing techniques, testing practices, and testing tools [ACM/IEEE-CS Interim Review Task Force 2008; Astigarraga et al 2010;Shepard et al 2001].…”