research-article

Test-driven learning in early programming courses

Authors:

David Janzen,

Hossein SaiedianAuthors Info & Claims

SIGCSE '08: Proceedings of the 39th SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education

Pages 532 - 536

https://doi.org/10.1145/1352135.1352315

Published: 12 March 2008 Publication History

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Abstract

Coercing new programmers to adopt disciplined development practices such as thorough unit testing is a challenging endeavor. Test-driven development (TDD) has been proposed as a solution to improve both software design and testing. Test-driven learning (TDL) has been proposed as a pedagogical approach for teaching TDD without imposing significant additional instruction time.

This research evaluates the effects of students using a test-first (TDD) versus test-last approach in early programming courses, and considers the use of TDL on a limited basis in CS1 and CS2. Software testing, programmer productivity, programmer performance, and programmer opinions are compared between test-first and test-last programming groups. Results from this research indicate that a test-first approach can increase student testing and programmer performance, but that early programmers are very reluctant to adopt a test-first approach, even after having positive experiences using TDD. Further, this research demonstrates that TDL can be applied in CS1/2, but suggests that a more pervasive implementation of TDL may be necessary to motivate and establish disciplined testing practice among early programmers.

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Doorn NVos TMarín BBockisch CDick SBarendsen E(2023)Domain TILEs: Test Informed Learning with Examples from the Testing DomainResearch Challenges in Information Science: Information Science and the Connected World10.1007/978-3-031-33080-3_31(501-508)Online publication date: 23-May-2023
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-33080-3_31
Charitsis CPiech CMitchell JKizilcec RDavis KOchoa X(2022)Function Names: Quantifying the Relationship Between Identifiers and Their Functionality to Improve ThemProceedings of the Ninth ACM Conference on Learning @ Scale10.1145/3491140.3528269(93-101)Online publication date: 1-Jun-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3491140.3528269
Arnyndiasari DFerdiana RSantosa P(2022)Software Practices For Agile Developers: A Systematic Literature Review2022 1st International Conference on Information System & Information Technology (ICISIT)10.1109/ICISIT54091.2022.9872874(238-243)Online publication date: 27-Jul-2022
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Index Terms

Test-driven learning in early programming courses
1. Social and professional topics
  1. Professional topics
    1. Computing education
      1. Computing education programs
        Computer science education
2. Software and its engineering
  1. Software creation and management
    1. Software development techniques
      1. Object oriented development
      2. Software prototyping
    2. Software post-development issues
      1. Software evolution
  2. Software notations and tools
    1. Development frameworks and environments
      1. Object oriented frameworks

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Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

SIGCSE '08: Proceedings of the 39th SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education

March 2008

606 pages

ISBN:9781595937995

DOI:10.1145/1352135

General Chairs:
J. D. Dougherty
Haverford College
,
Susan Rodger
Duke University
,
Program Chairs:
Sue Fitzgerald
Metropolitan State University
,
Mark Guzdial
Georgia Institute of Technology

ACM SIGCSE Bulletin Volume 40, Issue 1
SIGCSE 08
March 2008
549 pages
ISSN:0097-8418
DOI:10.1145/1352322
Issue’s Table of Contents

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 ACM 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]

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 12 March 2008

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SIGCSE '08

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SIGCSE '08: The 39th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education

March 12 - 15, 2008

OR, Portland, USA

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Overall Acceptance Rate 1,595 of 4,542 submissions, 35%

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SIGCSE Virtual 2024

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1st ACM Virtual Global Computing Education Conference

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Cited By

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Doorn NVos TMarín BBockisch CDick SBarendsen E(2023)Domain TILEs: Test Informed Learning with Examples from the Testing DomainResearch Challenges in Information Science: Information Science and the Connected World10.1007/978-3-031-33080-3_31(501-508)Online publication date: 23-May-2023
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-33080-3_31
Charitsis CPiech CMitchell JKizilcec RDavis KOchoa X(2022)Function Names: Quantifying the Relationship Between Identifiers and Their Functionality to Improve ThemProceedings of the Ninth ACM Conference on Learning @ Scale10.1145/3491140.3528269(93-101)Online publication date: 1-Jun-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3491140.3528269
Arnyndiasari DFerdiana RSantosa P(2022)Software Practices For Agile Developers: A Systematic Literature Review2022 1st International Conference on Information System & Information Technology (ICISIT)10.1109/ICISIT54091.2022.9872874(238-243)Online publication date: 27-Jul-2022
https://doi.org/10.1109/ICISIT54091.2022.9872874
Coffey JBitner S(2022)Student Persistence in the Use of Test Driven Development2022 International Conference on Computational Science and Computational Intelligence (CSCI)10.1109/CSCI58124.2022.00363(2023-2027)Online publication date: Dec-2022
https://doi.org/10.1109/CSCI58124.2022.00363
Wang AChen YChung JBrooks COney S(2021)PuzzleMe: Leveraging Peer Assessment for In-Class Programming ExercisesProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/34795595:CSCW2(1-24)Online publication date: 18-Oct-2021
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Call TFox ESprint G(2021)Gamifying Software Engineering Tools to Motivate Computer Science Students to Start and Finish Programming Assignments EarlierIEEE Transactions on Education10.1109/TE.2021.306994564:4(423-431)Online publication date: 1-Nov-2021
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Chisăliţă-Creţu CBota FPop A(2021)Software Testing Education Experiences Using Collaborative PlatformsSmart Education and e-Learning 202110.1007/978-981-16-2834-4_13(149-159)Online publication date: 6-Jun-2021
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Bai GRothermel GBae D(2020)Improving students' testing practicesProceedings of the ACM/IEEE 42nd International Conference on Software Engineering: Companion Proceedings10.1145/3377812.3381401(218-221)Online publication date: 27-Jun-2020
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Scatalon LGarcia RBarbosa E(2020)Teaching Practices of Software Testing in Programming Education2020 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE)10.1109/FIE44824.2020.9274256(1-9)Online publication date: 21-Oct-2020
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Santos de Campos DJames Ferreira D(2020)Plagiarism detection based on blinded logical test automation results and detection of textual similarity between source codes2020 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE)10.1109/FIE44824.2020.9274098(1-9)Online publication date: 21-Oct-2020
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