Evaluating the Impact of Scaffolding and Visualizations for Mutation Testing Exercises in Software Engineering Education
Mutation testing is an effective testing technique for improving how well a test suite can detect small changes to a program under test. This testing technique is seeing increased industry adoption. This paper aims to study the use of mutation testing in an educational setting and understand students' technical and conceptual challenges in applying mutation testing concepts. We report on two case studies of incorporating mutation testing into software engineering curricula.
Authors
- Anna Rita Fasolino (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7116-019X)
- Porfirio Tramontana (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3264-185X)
- Hannah Potter (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8502-1657)
- Domenico Amalfitano (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4761-4443)
- Ana C. R. Paiva (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3431-8060)
- René Just (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5982-275X)
Institutions
- Universidade do Porto (PT)
- University of Washington (US)
- INESC TEC (PT)
- Seattle University (US)
- University of Naples Federico II (IT)
Publication Details
- Published
- 2025-06-23
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1145/3696630.3727240
- Citations
- 1
- Primary Topic
- Software Testing and Debugging Techniques
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 2.31