TOWARD AN EVALUATION OF THE COGNITIVE PROCESSES USED BY SOFTWARE TESTERS
Gerald Tukseferi · DiVA (Mälardalen University College) · 2020
Software testing is a complex activity based on reasoning, decision making, abstraction and collaboration performed by allocating multiple cognitive resources. While studies of behaviour and cognitive aspects are emerging and rising in software engineering research, the study of cognition in software testing has yet to find its place in the research literature. Thus, this study explores the cognitive processes used by humans engaged in the software testing process by evaluating an existing: the Test Design Cognitive Model (TDCM). To achieve our objective, we conducted an experiment with veparticipants. The subjects were asked to test a specic Java program and verbalizing their thoughts. The results were analyzed using the verbal protocol analysis guidelines. The results suggest thatall the participants followed similar patterns as those hypothesised by the TDCM model. However,certain patterns specic to each participant were also evident. Two participants exhibited a failure pattern, in which both followed the same sequence of actions after evaluating the test case and verifying that it fails. The experiment protocol and the preliminary results provide a framework from which to investigate tester knowledge and expertise and it is the first step in understanding,evaluating and rening the cognitive processes of software testing.