Current Practices of Dynamic-Structural Testing in Programming Assessments

Authors

  • Rohaida Romli School of Computing, College of Arts and Sciences, Universiti Utara Malaysia, 06010 UUM Sintok, Kedah, Malaysia
  • Emylda Arni Abdurahim School of Computing, College of Arts and Sciences, Universiti Utara Malaysia, 06010 UUM Sintok, Kedah, Malaysia
  • Musyrifah Mahmod School of Computing, College of Arts and Sciences, Universiti Utara Malaysia, 06010 UUM Sintok, Kedah, Malaysia
  • Mazni Omar School of Computing, College of Arts and Sciences, Universiti Utara Malaysia, 06010 UUM Sintok, Kedah, Malaysia

Abstract

Automatic Programming Assessment (or APA) has been known as an important method to automatically mark and grade students’ programming exercises. It has been gaining a lot of attention from many researchers either to emphasize on the aspect of static analysis or dynamic testing (functional and structural testing). To date, not many recent studies attempted to focus on the context of structural testing even though, it is key in the software testing industry. Hence it becomes one of the most critical aspects of testing to be considered. Besides that, current literatures also lack information on APA’s detailed practices. Thus, we conducted a preliminary study to investigate the test adequacy criteria that have been commonly employed in the current practices of programming assessments which are applicable only to dynamic-structural testing. Specifically, this refers to testing that needs a program execution and focuses on the logic coverage of the tested program. In this paper, we reveal the means of conducting the preliminary study and its analysis and findings. From the findings, it has been discovered that most educators are commonly adopting the identified structural code coverage in programming assessments and even have a great leaning towards allowing those criteria to be considered in implementing APA

References

G. Tremblay, and E. Labonte, “Semi-Automatic Marking of Java Programs using Junit”, Proceeding of International Conference on Education and Information Systems: Technologies and Applications (EISTA ’03), Orlando, Florida, 2003, pp. 42-47.

Y. Liang, Q. Liu, J. Xu, and D. Wang, “The Recent Development of Automated Programming Assessment”, Proceeding of International Conference on Computational Intelligent and Software Engineering, Wuhan, China, 2009, pp. 1-5.

D. A. Jackson, “Software System for Grading Student Computer Programs”, Computers and Education, 27 (3-4), 1996, pp. 171-180.

R. Romli, S. Sulaiman, and K. Z. Zamli, “Designing a Test Set for Structural Testing in Automatic Programming Assessment”, International Journal of Advanced Soft Computing and Application, vol. 5, no.3, 2013, pp. 1- 24.

H. D. Chu, J. E. Dobson and I. C. Liu, FAST: A Framework for Automating Statistical-based Testing, Software Quality Journal, vol. 6, no. 1, 1997, pp. 13-36.

R. Romli, S. Sulaiman and K. Z. Zamli., “Current Practices of Programming Assessment at Higher Learning Institutions”, CCIS 179 (Springer Berlin/Heidelberg). Part 1, pp. 471-485, 2011.

J. Wegener, “Evolutionary Testing Techniques, Stochastic Algorithms: Foundations and Applications, Lecture Notes in Computer Science”, Vol. 3777/2005, 2005, pp. 82-94.

M. E. Khan, “Different Approaches to White Box Testing Technique for Finding Errors”, International Journal of Software Engineering and its Applications, vol. 5, no. 3, 2011, pp. 1-14.

J. Collofello and K. Vehathiri, "An environment for training computer science students on software testing," Proceedings Frontiers in Education 35th Annual Conference, Indianopolis, IN, 2005, pp. T3E-6

H. Zhu, "Axiomatic assessment of control flow-based software test adequacy criteria," in Software Engineering Journal, vol. 10, no. 5, pp. 194-204, Sept. 1995

G. I. Latiu, O. A. Cret and L. Vacariu, "Automatic Test Data Generation for Software Path Testing Using Evolutionary Algorithms," Emerging Intelligent Data and Web Technologies (EIDWT), 2012 Third International Conference on, Bucharest, 2012, pp. 1-8.

M. Roper, Software Testing. London, McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1994.

W. E. Perry, Effective Methods for Software Testing, 2nd Edition, John Wiley & Sons, Inc, USA, 2000.

I. Sommerville, Software Engineering. 7th

Edition. Pearson-Addison Wesley, USA, 2004.

B. Beizer, Software Testing Technique, 2nd

Edition. Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York, 1990.

J. K. Hayhurst, D. S. Veerhusen, J. Chilenski, and L. K. Rierson, “A Practical Tutorial on Modified Condition/Decision Coverage” NASA STI Perogram , 2001, pp. 7-9.

U. Sekara, Research Methods for Bussiness: A Skill Building Approach, 4th Edition, John Wiley & Sons, Singapore, 2003.

Downloads

Published

2016-05-01

How to Cite

Romli, R., Abdurahim, E. A., Mahmod, M., & Omar, M. (2016). Current Practices of Dynamic-Structural Testing in Programming Assessments. Journal of Telecommunication, Electronic and Computer Engineering (JTEC), 8(2), 153–159. Retrieved from https://jtec.utem.edu.my/jtec/article/view/975

Most read articles by the same author(s)