Improving testing education - seven observations why testing is different

Abstract

Improvement of testing education has gained relative little attention in universities compared to other software engineering disciplines. In this paper, we argue that such improvement is generally needed, and give a starting point for this task. We list seven observations, based on personal views, on the differences between testing and other software development activities, and their reflections on teaching testing. Moreover, we outline our testing education improvement project and discuss experiences in that. Towards the end of the paper, we give farther hints for those wishing to undertake such improvement task at their institutions.