Title: Improving software testing course experience with pair testing pattern

Authors: Iyad Alazzam; Mohammed Akour

Addresses: Department of Computer Information Systems, Yarmouk University, P.O. Box 566, Irbid 21163, Jordan ' Department of Computer Information Systems, Yarmouk University, P.O. Box 566, Irbid 21163, Jordan

Abstract: Pair programming is a software engineering agile technique where two programmers use a single computer to perform certain tasks together. Research in using pair programming in education showed that pair programming has a positive effect in improving students' ability and willingness to continue learning and practising. In comparison with research in this specific area little research was reported in evaluating the use of pair programming for teaching other software engineering skills (e.g., pair testing, pair design, etc.). This paper focuses on assessing and evaluating the use of pair programming techniques in developing and writing test cases in order to test software systems. Pair programming experiments was used to evaluate the ability of students to learn how to create test cases with different perspectives of coverage in mind.

Keywords: pair programming; mutation; code coverage; software testing; course experience; pair testing; software engineering; test cases; software education.

DOI: 10.1504/IJTCS.2015.072632

International Journal of Teaching and Case Studies, 2015 Vol.6 No.3, pp.244 - 250

Received: 10 Mar 2015
Accepted: 01 Jul 2015

Published online: 22 Oct 2015 *

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