Bug catcher
Renée C. Bryce, Quentin Mayo, Aaron Andrews, Daniel Bokser, Michael P. Burton, Chelynn Day, Jessica Gonzolez, Tara Noble · 2013
Bug Catcher is a web-based system for running software testing competitions. While programming competitions are a way to engage students, they require students to have coding experience. On the other hand, software testing competitions may reach high school students that do not have access to a programming course. In this paper, we present the Bug Catcher system and the results from four sessions of a competition that include a total of 94 high school students. Bug Catcher provides students with requirements, buggy code, and input fields to enter test cases. We observed that most students began entering test cases based on requirements, but then many took an interest in the code as time went on. Our results show that 90% of students would recommend this activity in the future and 72% of students report that the activity increased their interest in Computer Science. Students also provided feedback on the system from the perspective of students without background in Computer Science, allowing us to create and modify features for future use.