Bridging Theory to Practice in Software Testing Teaching through Team-based Learning (TBL) and Open Source Software (OSS) Contribution
Pages 72 - 81
Abstract
Curricula recommendation for undergraduate Software Engineering courses underscore the importance of transcending from traditional lecture format to actively involving students in time-limited, iterative development practices. This paper presents a teaching approach for a software testing course that integrates theory and practical experience through the utilization of both TBL and active contributions to OSS projects. The paper reports on our experience implementing the pedagogical approach over four consecutive semesters of a Software Testing course within an undergraduate Software Engineering program. The experience encompassed both online and in-person classes, involving a substantial cohort of over 300 students spanning four semesters. Students' perceptions regarding the course are analyzed and compared with previous, related studies. Our results are positively aligned with the existing literature of software engineering teaching, confirming the effectiveness of combining TBL with OSS contributions. Additionally, our survey has shed light on the challenges that students encounter during their first contribution to OSS projects, highlighting the need for targeted solutions. Overall, the experience demonstrates that the proposed pedagogical structure can effectively facilitate the transition from theoretical knowledge to real-world practice in the domain of Software Testing.
References
[1]
Tutaleni I. Asino and Alana Pulay. 2019. Student Perceptions on the Role of the Classroom Environment on Computer Supported Collaborative Learning. TechTrends 63, 2 (March 2019), 179--187.
[2]
Mihir Awatramani and Diane Rover. 2015. Team-based learning course design and assessment in computer engineering. In 2015 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE). 1--9.
[3]
Moara Sousa Brito, Fernanda Gomes Silva, Christina von Flach G. Chavez, Debora C. Nascimento, and Roberto A. Bittencourt. 2018. FLOSS in software engineering education: an update of a systematic mapping study. In Proceedings of the XXXII Brazilian Symposium on Software Engineering (SBES '18). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 250--259.
[4]
Christina M. Cestone, Ruth E. Levine, and Derek R. Lane. 2008. Peer assessment and evaluation in team-based learning. New Directions for Teaching and Learning 2008, 116 (Dec. 2008), 69--78. Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
[5]
Lin Deng, Josh Dehlinger, and Suranjan Chakraborty. 2020. Teaching Software Testing with Free and Open Source Software. In 2020 IEEE International Conference on Software Testing, Verification and Validation Workshops (ICSTW). 412--418.
[6]
Hao He, Minghui Zhou, Qingye Wang, and Jingyue Li. 2023. Open Source Software Onboarding as a University Course: An Experience Report. In 2023 IEEE/ACM 45th International Conference on Software Engineering: Software Engineering Education and Training (ICSE-SEET). 324--336. ISSN: 2832-7578.
[7]
Joint Task Force on Computing Curricula IEEE Computer Society Association for Computing Machinery. 2014. Curriculum Guidelines for Undergraduate Degree Programs in Software Engineering. https://www.acm.org/binaries/content/assets/education/se2014.pdf
[8]
Alark Joshi, Marissa Schmidt, Shane Panter, and Amit Jain. 2020. Evaluating the Benefits of Team-Based Learning in a Systems Programming Class. In 2020 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE). 1--7. ISSN: 2377-634X.
[9]
Timothy C Krehbiel, Peter A Salzarulo, Michelle L Cosmah, John Forren, Gerald Gannod, Douglas Havelka, Andrea R Hulshult, and Jeffrey Merhout. 2017. Agile Manifesto for Teaching and Learning. 17 (2017).
[10]
Hrafn Loftsson and Ásrún Matthíasdóttir. 2019. Using Flipped Classroom and Team-Based Learning in a First-Semester Programming Course: An Experience Report. In 2019 IEEE International Conference on Engineering, Technology and Education (TALE). 1--6. ISSN: 2470-6698.
[11]
Santiago Matalonga, Gastón Mousqués, and Alejandro Bia. 2017. Deploying Team-Based Learning at Undergraduate Software Engineering Courses. In 2017 IEEE/ACM 1st International Workshop on Software Engineering Curricula for Millennials (SECM). 9--15.
[12]
Larry K. Michaelsen, Arletta Bauman Knight, and L. Dee Fink (Eds.). 2002. Team-Based Learning: A Transformative Use of Small Groups (1st edition ed.). Praeger, Westport, Conn.
[13]
Larry K. Michaelsen and Michael Sweet. 2008. The essential elements of team-based learning. New Directions for Teaching and Learning 2008, 116 (Sept. 2008), 7--27.
[14]
Debora Maria Coelho Nascimento, Christina von Flach Garcia Chavez, and Roberto Almeida Bittencourt. 2019. Does FLOSS in Software Engineering Education Narrow the Theory-Practice Gap? A Study Grounded on Students' Perception. In Open Source Systems (IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology), Francis Bordeleau, Alberto Sillitti, Paulo Meirelles, and Valentina Lenarduzzi (Eds.). Springer International Publishing, Cham, 153--164.
[15]
Shazia Nawabi, Rabia Bilal, and Muhammad Qasim Javed. 2021. Team-based learning versus Traditional lecture-based learning: An investigation of students' perceptions and academic achievements. Pakistan Journal of Medical Sciences 37, 4 (May 2021). Number: 4.
[16]
Sofia Ouhbi and Nuno Pombo. 2020. Software Engineering Education: Challenges and Perspectives. In 2020 IEEE Global Engineering Education Conference (EDUCON). 202--209. ISSN: 2165-9567.
[17]
Gustavo Pinto, Clarice Ferreira, Cleice Souza, Igor Steinmacher, and Paulo Meirelles. 2019. Training Software Engineers Using Open-Source Software: The Students' Perspective. In 2019 IEEE/ACM 41st International Conference on Software Engineering: Software Engineering Education and Training (ICSE-SEET). 147--157.
[18]
Gustavo Henrique Lima Pinto, Fernando Figueira Filho, Igor Steinmacher, and Marco Aurelio Gerosa. 2017. Training Software Engineers Using Open-Source Software: The Professors' Perspective. In 2017 IEEE 30th Conference on Software Engineering Education and Training (CSEE&T). 117--121. ISSN: 2377-570X.
[19]
Lori Postner, Darci Burdge, Heidi J. C. Ellis, Stoney Jackson, and Gregory W. Hislop. 2019. Impact of HFOSS on Education on Instructors. In Proceedings of the 2019 ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education (ITiCSE '19). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 285--291.
[20]
Kai Presler-Marshall, Sarah Heckman, and Kathryn T. Stolee. 2023. Improving Grading Outcomes in Software Engineering Projects Through Automated Contributions Summaries. In 2023 IEEE/ACM 45th International Conference on Software Engineering: Software Engineering Education and Training (ICSE-SEET). 259--270. ISSN: 2832-7578.
[21]
Melissa Rands and Ann Gansemer-Topf. 2017. The Room Itself Is Active: How Classroom Design Impacts Student Engagement. Journal of Learning Spaces 6, 1 (Jan. 2017), 26--33. https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/edu_pubs/49
[22]
Italo Santos, Igor Wiese, Igor Steinmacher, Anita Sarma, and Marco A. Gerosa. 2022. Hits and Misses: Newcomers' ability to identify Skills needed for OSS tasks. In 2022 IEEE International Conference on Software Analysis, Evolution and Reengineering (SANER). 174--183. ISSN: 1534-5351.
[23]
Eva-Maria Schön, Ilona Buchem, Stefano Sostak, and Maria Rauschenberger. 2023. Shift Toward Value-Based Learning: Applying Agile Approaches in Higher Education. In Web Information Systems and Technologies (Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing), Massimo Marchiori, Francisco José Domínguez Mayo, and Joaquim Filipe (Eds.). Springer Nature Switzerland, Cham, 24--41.
[24]
Therese Mary Smith, Robert McCartney, Swapna S. Gokhale, and Lisa C. Kaczmarczyk. 2014. Selecting open source software projects to teach software engineering. In Proceedings of the 45th ACM technical symposium on Computer science education (SIGCSE '14). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 397--402.
[25]
Diomidis Spinellis. 2021. Why computing students should contribute to open source software projects. Commun. ACM 64, 7 (June 2021), 36--38.
[26]
Gitte van Helden, Barry T. C. Zandbergen, Marcus M. Specht, and Eberhard K. A. Gill. 2023. Collaborative Learning in Engineering Design Education: A Systematic Literature Review. IEEE Transactions on Education (2023), 1--0. Conference Name: IEEE Transactions on Education.
Index Terms
- Bridging Theory to Practice in Software Testing Teaching through Team-based Learning (TBL) and Open Source Software (OSS) Contribution
Recommendations
Software engineering education in the era of outsourcing, distributed development, and open source software: challenges and opportunities
ICSE '05: Proceedings of the 27th international conference on Software engineeringAs software development becomes increasingly globally distributed, and more software functions are delegated to common open source software (OSS) and commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components, practicing software engineers face significant challenges ...
Teaching software testing concepts using a mutation testing game
ICSE-SEET '17: Proceedings of the 39th International Conference on Software Engineering: Software Engineering and Education TrackSoftware testing is a core aspect of software development, but testing programs systematically is not always a core aspect of software engineering education. As a result, software developers often treat testing as a liability, and overall software ...
Open Source Software: Lessons from and for Software Engineering
Despite initial suggestions to the contrary, open source software projects exhibit many of the fundamental tenets of software engineering. Likewise, the existence of category-killer apps suggests that conventional software engineering can draw some ...
Comments
Information & Contributors
Information
Published In
April 2024
417 pages
ISBN:9798400704987
DOI:10.1145/3639474
- Co-chairs:
- Ana Paiva,
- Rui Abreu,
- Kiev Gama,
- Janet Siegmund,
- Program Co-chairs:
- Abhik Roychoudhury,
- Margaret Storey
Copyright © 2024 Copyright is held by the owner/author(s). Publication rights licensed to ACM.
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected].
Sponsors
In-Cooperation
- Faculty of Engineering of University of Porto
Publisher
Association for Computing Machinery
New York, NY, United States
Publication History
Published: 24 May 2024
Check for updates
Author Tags
Qualifiers
- Research-article
Conference
ICSE-SEET '24
Sponsor:
ICSE-SEET '24: 46th International Conference on Software Engineering: Software Engineering Education and Training
April 14 - 20, 2024
Lisbon, Portugal
Upcoming Conference
Contributors
Other Metrics
Bibliometrics & Citations
Bibliometrics
Article Metrics
- 0Total Citations
- 35Total Downloads
- Downloads (Last 12 months)35
- Downloads (Last 6 weeks)6
Reflects downloads up to 11 Aug 2024
Other Metrics
Citations
View Options
Get Access
Login options
Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.
Sign in