A Case Study on the Application of Case-Based Learning in Software Testing

Abstract

Software testing is a popular mean of examining the adequacy of a developed product. However, in academic institutions more emphasis is given to software development than ensuring its quality. In order to address the gaps between existing university-level software testing education and the training standards used in industry, we experiment with employing a popular teaching method Case-Based Learning (CBL) for the first time to facilitate the training of selected software testing concepts at tertiary-level. The CBL exercise is conducted for undergraduate students of DAIICT, Gandhinagar (India) to cultivate the decision making skills in a self-learning environment. After the CBL execution we collect students' responses through a short survey and perform an empirical analysis on the survey results. The outcome of this CBL practice is positive as a majority of students are able to achieve the five stated objectives of CBL. We examine that there is a statistically significant difference between students' responses based on gender diversity. We also investigate the difference in students' feedback to the two different CBL cases that we use for practicing some aspects of software testing. Moreover, we draw useful inferences from the opinions of TAs (Teaching Assistants) about the CBL sessions.