Can gamification help in software testing education?: Findings from an empirical study

Raquel Blanco Aguirre; Manuel Trinidad García; María José Suárez Cabal; Alejandro Calderón; Mercedes Ruiz Carreira; Pablo Javier Tuya González

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Can gamification help in software testing education?: Findings from an empirical study

Raquel Blanco ^[1] ; Manuel Trinidad ^[2] ; María José Suárez-Cabal ^[1] ; Alejandro Calderón Sánchez ^[2] ; Mercedes Ruiz ^[2] ; Javier Tuya ^[1]
1. [1] Universidad de Oviedo
  
  Universidad de Oviedo
  
  Oviedo, España
2. [2] Universidad de Cádiz
  
  Universidad de Cádiz
  
  Cádiz, España
Localización: Actas de las XXVII Jornadas de Ingeniería del Software y Bases de Datos (JISBD 2023) / coord. por Amador Durán Toro, 2023
Idioma: inglés
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Resumen
- Software testing is an essential knowledge area required by industry for soft-ware engineers. However, software engineering students often consider testing less appealing than designing or coding. Consequently, it is difficult to engage students to create effective tests. To encourage students, we explored the use of gamification and investigated whether this technique can help to improve the engagement and performance of software testing students. We conducted a controlled experiment to compare the engagement and performance of two groups of students that took an undergraduate software testing course in differ-ent academic years. The experimental group is formed by 135 students from the gamified course whereas the control group is formed by 100 students from the non-gamified course. The data collected were statistically analyzed to an-swer the research questions of this study. The results show that the students that participated in the gamification experience were more engaged and achieved a better performance. As an additional finding, the analysis of the re-sults reveals that a key aspect to succeed is the gamification experience design. It is important to distribute the motivating stimulus provided by the gamifica-tion throughout the whole experience to engage students until the end. Given these results, we plan to readjust the gamification experience design to in-crease student engagement in the last stage of the experience, as well as to conduct a longitudinal study to evaluate the effects of gamification.