Can gamification help in software testing education? Findings from an empirical study

Software testing is an essential knowledge area required by industry for software engineers. However, software engineering students often consider testing less appealing than designing or coding. Consequently, it is difficult to engage students to create effective tests. To encourage students, we explored the use of gamification and investigated whether this technique can help to improve the engagement and performance of software testing students. We conducted a controlled experiment to compare the engagement and performance of two groups of students that took an undergraduate software testing course in different academic years. The experimental group is formed by 135 students from the gamified course whereas the control group is formed by 100 students from the non-gamified course. The data collected were statistically analyzed to answer the research questions of this study. The results show that the students that participated in the gamification experience were more engaged and achieved a better performance. As an additional finding, the analysis of the results reveals that a key aspect to succeed is the gamification experience design. It is important to distribute the motivating stimulus provided by the gamification throughout the whole experience to engage students until the end. Given these results, we plan to readjust the gamification experience design to increase student engagement in the last stage of the experience, as well as to conduct a longitudinal study to evaluate the effects of gamification

A Review on Tools, Mechanics, Benefits, and Challenges of Gamified Software Testing

Gamification is an established practice in Software Engineering to increase effectiveness and engagement in many practices. This manuscript provides a characterisation of the application of gamification to the Software Testing area. Such practice in fact reportedly suffers from low engagement by both personnel in industrial contexts and learners in educational contexts. Our goal is to identify the application areas and utilised gamified techniques and mechanics, the provided benefits and drawbacks, as well as the open challenges in the field. To this purpose, we conducted a Multivocal Literature Review to identify white and grey literature sources addressing gamified software testing. We analysed 73 contributions and summarised the most common gamified mechanics, concepts, tools and domains where they are mostly applied. We conclude that gamification in software testing is mostly applied to the test creation phase with simple white-box unit or mutation testing tools, and is mostly used to foster good behaviours by promoting the testers’ accomplishment. Key research areas and main challenges in the field are: careful design of tailored gamified mechanics for specific testing techniques; the need for technological improvements to enable crowdsourcing, cooperation, and concurrency; the necessity for empirical and large-scale evaluation of the benefits delivered by gamification mechanics

Gamifying Software Testing – A Focus on Strategy & Tools Development

This study aims to introduce new software testing strategies and tools with the aim of creating a more engaging and rewarding environment for software testers. For this purpose, gamification has been selected as a potential solution to raise the performances of testers. Empirical experiments were conducted to validate key factors and metrics influencing the design and development of a gamified software testing system

Educational game systems in artificial intelligence course

Article actuality based on fact that existing knowledge system aimed at future professional life of students: a skillful use game activity in educational process will teach students to look for alternative ways solving of real problems. The purpose of article lies in theoretical substantiation, development and testing of criteria, which must be met by special-purpose software oriented on gamification of educational process. A leading research method of the described problem is a method of simulation that allows to consider gamification as concentration and organized process for increasing the factor of student engagement in cognitive activity. This article aimed to demonstrate models of ideal educational game programs with optimum number of gamification elements, also article focused on development of such software, which will be not entertaining, but educational in nature. The article may be useful for researchers dealing with gamification issues and software developers, which works relate with educational programs. © 2016 Chubarkova et al

Building a Learning Management System which Features Gamification of Appreciative Inquiry for a Remote Elementary School in Indonesia

Communication between teachers and students is not limited to the physical classroom but has shifted to include the online classroom. A learning management system (LMS) is an app or software that aids in administration, documentation, finding materials, reporting on an activity, and providing online teaching and learning materials. The purpose of this research is to build a Learning Management System (LMS) which features gamification of appreciative inquiry. Gamification motivates students to learn and makes it easier for teachers to provide materials and give assignments to students. The study was carried out using the waterfall method. The waterfall method includes analysis requirements, system and software design, implementation, and unit testing. Keywords: Gamification, LMS, Appreciative Inquir

Recent Trends in Software Testing Education: A Systematic Literature Review

Testing is a critical aspect of software development. Far too often software is released with critical faults. However, testing is often considered tedious and boring. Unfortunately, many graduates might join the work force without having had any education in software testing, which exacerbates the problem even further. Therefore, teaching software testing as part of a university degree in software engineering and is very important. But it is an open challenge how to teach software testing in an effective way that can successfully motivate students. In this paper, we have carried out a systematic literature review on the topic of teaching software testing. We analysed and reviewed 30 papers that were published between 2013 and 2017. The review points out to a few different trends, like the use of gamification to make the teaching of software testing less tedious

Having Fun in Learning Formal Specifications

There are many benefits in providing formal specifications for our software. However, teaching students to do this is not always easy as courses on formal methods are often experienced as dry by students. This paper presents a game called FormalZ that teachers can use to introduce some variation in their class. Students can have some fun in playing the game and, while doing so, also learn the basics of writing formal specifications in the form of pre- and post-conditions. Unlike existing software engineering themed education games such as Pex and Code Defenders, FormalZ takes the deep gamification approach where playing gets a more central role in order to generate more engagement. This short paper presents our work in progress: the first implementation of FormalZ along with the result of a preliminary users' evaluation. This implementation is functionally complete and tested, but the polishing of its user interface is still future work

Gamifying Information System Testing–Qualitative Validation through Focus Group Discussion

This paper presents the evaluation of a developed gamified Information System Testing platform through results obtained from focus group sessions with software developers and testers. The purpose of this study is to understand if the developed tool and platform can help Information System Testing to be interesting while increasing the engagement of software testers in a rewarding testing environment. Findings suggest that choosing suitable game elements to design a gamified environment for performing serious tasks is very important. Moreover, findings suggest that the developed tool and gamification may be a solution to increase testers’ engagement and testing experience. Furthermore, participants suggested that game elements such as feedback and comparison may increase testing motivation, engagement and experience of software testers. The majority of participants rated the feedback element as a vital element in a gamified Information System Testing environment

The THREAT-ARREST Cyber-Security Training Platform

Cyber security is always a main concern for critical infrastructures and nation-wide safety and sustainability. Thus, advanced cyber ranges and security training is becoming imperative for the involved organizations. This paper presets a cyber security training platform, called THREAT-ARREST. The various platform modules can analyze an organization’s system, identify the most critical threats, and tailor a training program to its personnel needs. Then, different training programmes are created based on the trainee types (i.e. administrator, simple operator, etc.), providing several teaching procedures and accomplishing diverse learning goals. One of the main novelties of THREAT-ARREST is the modelling of these programmes along with the runtime monitoring, management, and evaluation operations. The platform is generic. Nevertheless, its applicability in a smart energy case study is detailed