Test first, code later: Educating for test driven development: Teaching case

Naomi Unkelos-Shpigel, Irit Hadar

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

Abstract

As software engineering (SE) and information systems (IS) projects become more and more of collaborative nature in practice, project-based courses become an integral part of IS and SE curricula. One major challenge in this type of courses is students’ tendency to write test cases for their projects at a very late stage, often neglecting code coverage. This paper presents a teaching case of a Test-Driven Development (TDD) workshop that was conducted during a SE course intended for senior undergraduate IS students. The students were asked to write test cases according to TDD principles, and then develop code meeting test cases received from their peers. Students’ perceptions towards TDD were found to be quite positive. This experience indicates that instructing SE courses according to TDD principles, where test cases are written at the beginning of the project, may have positive effect on students’ code development skills and performance in general, and on their understanding of TDD in particular. These findings are informative for both education researchers and instructors who are interested in embedding TDD in IS or SE education.

Original languageAmerican English
Title of host publicationAdvanced Information Systems Engineering Workshops - CAiSE 2018 International Workshops, Proceedings
EditorsRemco Dijkman, Raimundas Matulevicius
PublisherSpringer Verlag
Pages186-192
Number of pages7
ISBN (Print)9783319928975
DOIs
StatePublished - 2018
EventInternational workshops: ASDENCA, BDA, BIOC, COGNISE, Enterprise Modeling, and FAiSE wokshops are held in conjunction with the 30th International Conference on Advanced Information Systems Engineering, CAiSE 2018 - Tallinn, Estonia
Duration: 11 Jun 201815 Jun 2018

Publication series

NameLecture Notes in Business Information Processing
Volume316

Conference

ConferenceInternational workshops: ASDENCA, BDA, BIOC, COGNISE, Enterprise Modeling, and FAiSE wokshops are held in conjunction with the 30th International Conference on Advanced Information Systems Engineering, CAiSE 2018
Country/TerritoryEstonia
CityTallinn
Period11/06/1815/06/18

Keywords

  • Education
  • Requirements engineering
  • Software engineering
  • Test Driven Development

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Management Information Systems
  • Control and Systems Engineering
  • Business and International Management
  • Information Systems
  • Modelling and Simulation
  • Information Systems and Management

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