Pragmatic look at education and training of software test engineers: Further cooperation of academia and industry is needed

Vahid Garousi
Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast, UK
Testinium A.Ş., İstanbul, Türkiye
ProSys MMC, Baku, Azerbaijan
v.garousi@qub.ac.uk
vahid.garousi@testinium.com

Alper Buğra Keleş
Testinium A.Ş., İstanbul, Türkiye
alper.keles@testinium.com

Presented in: The Third International Software Testing Education Workshop (TestEd 2024), co-located with the 17th IEEE International Conference on Software Testing, Verification and Validation (ICST 2024),
May 28, 2024
Toronto, Canada

Transcript

1. 1 of 15 Vahid Garousi Presented in: The Third International Software Testing Education Workshop (TestEd 2024), co-located with the 17th IEEE International Conference on Software Testing, Verification and Validation (ICST 2024), May 28, 2024 Toronto, Canada
2. 2 of 15 Vahid Garousi • • • • • • • • • Model-based testing training, Istanbul, Turkiye, 2019
3. 3 of 15 Vahid Garousi • • • • • • • • •
4. 4 of 15 Vahid Garousi This is quite a large and complex model ;) Let’s review piece by piece… At the center, is: Most of the papers in the community are about this “path” • This work takes a “pragmatic” high-level overview on the issue: • Presenting a number of observations and challenges, from our experience (combined 40 years) • Competency profiling of software-testing knowledge and skills • Recommendations
5. 5 of 15 Vahid Garousi • (-) • (-) • • (+) • (-) • (-) • (+)
6. 6 of 15 Vahid Garousi • (-) • • (-)
7. 7 of 15 Vahid Garousi • This work takes a “pragmatic” high-level overview on the issue: • Presenting a number of observations and challenges, from our experience (combined 40 years) • Competency profiling of software-testing knowledge and skills • Why?  To better characterize Software-testing education in academia; versus its training and certification in industry • Recommendations
8. 8 of 15 Vahid Garousi • • Software Engineering Body of Knowledge (SWEBOK) v3.0, 2014 Software testing competencies of the Software Engineering Competency Model (SWECOM) v1.0, 2014 v4.0, 2024
9. 9 of 15 Vahid Garousi • • www.bimframework.info/competency Building Information Modelling (BIM)
10. 10 of 15 Vahid Garousi Training / course of little to no benefit (to learners) Applied knowledge (skills) of testing, testing in action (manual and using tools) Conceptual knowledge (theory) of testing High coverage (in education / training) Low coverage (in education / training) Low, Low High, High Low theory knowledge, High practical skill High theory knowledge, Low practical skill Low Low High High (Or a human tester with low knowledge in both aspects) Can consider two perspectives: If a learner fully learns everything taught in the course, the two would be the same and different, if not
11. 11 of 15 Vahid Garousi Training / course of little to no benefit (to learners) Applied knowledge (skills) of testing, testing in action (manual and using tools) Conceptual knowledge (theory) of testing High coverage (in education / training) Low coverage (in education / training) (Most) Industrial training courses Brief “lecture”-slide component of training Major hands-on component of training using test tools (e.g., Selenium) Low theory knowledge, High practical skill
12. 12 of 15 Vahid Garousi Training / course of little to no benefit (to learners) Applied knowledge (skills) of testing, testing in action (manual and using tools) Conceptual knowledge (theory) of testing High coverage (in education / training) Low coverage (in education / training) Low, Low High, High Low theory knowledge, High practical skill High theory knowledge, Low practical skill Low Low High High Almost impossible to achieve in training: Time budget of training is limited, thus cannot cover “everything” in testing – only comes with time and experience
13. 13 of 15 Vahid Garousi Training / course of little to no benefit (to learners) Applied knowledge (skills) of testing, testing in action (manual and using tools) Conceptual knowledge (theory) of testing High coverage (in education / training) Low coverage (in education / training) Low, Low Low Low High High (Most) Industrial training courses Almost impossible to achieve in training: Time budget of training is limited, thus cannot cover “everything” in testing – only comes with time and experience * Ideal spot * Certifications such as ISTQB Suited for PhD- level (research) courses Very high theory knowledge, Low practical skill University testing courses Ironically, certifications such as ISTQB are mostly theoretical study and exams. ISTQB essentially “confirms” the theoretical knowledge of a tester, for recruiters, and then s/he needs to take further training in applied skills, mainly test automation. * *
14. 14 of 15 Vahid Garousi Most of our papers in the community are about this “path” • This work takes a “pragmatic” high-level overview on the issue: • Presenting a number of observations and challenges, from our experience (combined 40 years) • Competency profiling of software-testing knowledge and skills • Summary, Recommendations and Discussions
15. 15 of 15 Vahid Garousi • • • • • • • • • • Calgary Baku Ankara Belfast Cities that this work has some forms of roots in … Ottawa İstanbul