Abstract
Although software testing is crucial in safeguarding our rapidly digitizing society against accidental and malefic threats, students often perceive it as an unattractive activity when compared to design or coding. A more abundant exposure to bugs and their impact can improve the situation. To test this radically new hypothesis, we developed VU-BugZoo, an interactive software testing learning platform. Built upon a repository of fault-seeded executables, the platform engages students and teachers in a dynamic bug-hunting experience. What counts the most in this game is the quality of the test strategy and fault diagnosis, rather than just the quantity of devised test cases. In this paper, we describe the VU-BugZoo web-application, developed using a stack of Vue.js and Python Flask, running in Docker containers. Next, we report on its first deployment in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, for a remote assessment of 50 graduate CS students enrolled in an introductory software testing course. Students' evaluations show that for novices, a 100%-bug-guarantee, end-to-end testing challenge (1) makes learning more effective, (2) offers an adequate assessment instrument and (3) adds more excitement to an otherwise uninspiring chore. More research is needed to investigate the potential of our bug-centric approach to contribute to the hard mission of boosting students' interest in a testing career. We are currently extending the corpus of bugs with more fascinating and representative examples, and investigating code animation, automated grading and formative feedback generation. We intend to make the platform available for other software testing courses in academia and industry.
Original language | English |
---|---|
Title of host publication | ITiCSE '21 |
Subtitle of host publication | Proceedings of the 26th ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education V. 1 |
Publisher | Association for Computing Machinery |
Pages | 171-177 |
Number of pages | 7 |
ISBN (Electronic) | 9781450382144 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Jun 2021 |
Event | 26th ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education, ITiCSE 2021 - Virtual, Online, Germany Duration: 26 Jun 2021 → 1 Jul 2021 |
Publication series
Name | Annual Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education, ITiCSE |
---|---|
ISSN (Print) | 1942-647X |
Conference
Conference | 26th ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education, ITiCSE 2021 |
---|---|
Country/Territory | Germany |
City | Virtual, Online |
Period | 26/06/21 → 1/07/21 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:This project is funded by the NRO, The Netherlands Initiative for Education Research, as part of a Comenius Teaching Fellow grant. The authors would like to thank the VU Computer Science department and Stefan Schlobach in particular, for co-financing the project; Herbert Bos and Wan Fokkink for their useful suggestions and encouragements; finally, all of the CS students who participated in the software testing course, and in particular the 2020 cohort, who endured with stoicism our pilot experiment, and blessed us with their precious suggestions and encouragements.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Owner/Author.
Copyright:
Copyright 2021 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
Keywords
- COVID-19 pandemic
- fault injection
- remote assessment
- software testing education