Course Design of Introducing Selenium WebDriver
Minjie Hu, Aleksei Trofimov · 2024
Selenium WebDriver tool is widely used to automate test scripts in web application development. However, this tool has limitations that cause difficulties for testers, which also makes barriers in both learning and teaching. This study aims to help tertiary students master this tool and overcome its limitations. Using the Design Science Research method, an artifact was developed in the course design of introducing Selenium WebDriver in order to fill in the gap in the contemporary literature. The course design describes the use of various strategies for finding elements on web pages, actions on those elements, and the use of third-party libraries. The evaluation phase, based on scenarios for a demo e-commerce website, showed the effectiveness of the artifact in near-real-life conditions. The results of the evaluation demonstrated that the course design helps students develop skills to generate test suites for complex websites, which successfully fulfilled the goal of teaching students the necessary skills to test modern web applications. However, only descriptive evaluation method was used in the evaluation rather than had a suitable case study, which could identify fewer potential areas for improvement of the artifact. This study tackles a crucial issue: the gap between software testing education and industry practices. While industry demands professionals with test automation skills, training and education in this area remain a significant challenge. The findings have practical implications for students pursuing a career in software development or software testing, particularly in automated testing for web application. This research project establishes a foundation for further exploration in software testing education.