An Empirical Evaluation of the First and Second Order Mutation Testing Strategies

Various mutation approximation techniques have been proposed in the literature in order to reduce the expenses of mutation. This paper presents results from an empirical study conducted for first and second order mutation testing strategies. Its scope is to evaluate the relative application cost and effectiveness of the different mutation strategies. The application cost was based: on the number of mutants, the equivalent ones and on the number of test cases needed to expose them by each strategy. Each strategy's effectiveness was evaluated by its ability to expose a set of seeded faults. The results indicate that on the one hand the first order mutation testing strategies can be in general more effective than the second order ones. On the other hand, the second order strategies can drastically decrease the number of the introduced equivalent mutants, generally forming a valid cost effective alternative to mutation testing.