Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/94417
Title: Investigating cognitive workload during comprehension and application tasks in software testing
Authors: Camilleri, Daryl
Micallef, Mark
Porter, Chris
Keywords: Computer software -- Verification
Computer software -- Testing
Software engineering -- Case studies
Issue Date: 2022-07
Publisher: Software Engineering & Knowledge Engineering
Citation: Camilleri, D., Micallef, M., & Porter. C. (2022). Investigating cognitive workload during comprehension and application tasks in software testing. International Conference on Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering (SEKE) - KSI Research, 1-6.
Abstract: Software testers are an integral part of software development teams and consequently need to understand the project on a variety of levels. Whilst developers might be required to understand a particular module or area of specialisation within a project, testers’ comprehension requirements are much broader. Gaining insights into how testers fare in different comprehension tasks is useful because it sheds light on how we can potentially support the testing community’s efforts. In this paper we report on the results of a laboratory experiment with 15 professional software testers. Using NASA-TLX as our instrument of choice, we asked participants to carry out eight comprehension and application tasks across four categories (test case design, automation, bug finding and adequacy analysis). We then analysed the data collected to understand the effect of different task types, education level and participant experience have on effectiveness and cognitive workload. Our results indicate that whilst experience is a key influence on successful task completion, this is also affected by task type. That is to say that more experienced people actually fare worst than less experienced counterparts in certain tasks (test case design and adequacy analysis). Level of education had no significant bearing on successful task completion but differences in cognitive workload can be observed for both experience and education level variables.
URI: http://ksiresearch.org/seke/seke22.html
https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/94417
ISSN: 2325-9086
Appears in Collections:Scholarly Works - FacICTCS

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