Students' and professionals' perceptions of test-driven development: a focus group study

Giuseppe Scanniello; Simone Romano; Davide Fucci; Burak Turhan; Natalia Juristo

doi:10.1145/2851613.2851778

Students' and professionals' perceptions of test-driven development: a focus group study

Giuseppe Scanniello, Simone Romano, Davide Fucci, Burak Turhan, Natalia Juristo

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference Paper › Research › peer-review

22 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

We have conducted a qualitative investigation on test-driven development (TDD) with focus groups to develop insights on the opinions of developers using TDD regarding the unintuitive process involved, its claimed effects, as well as the context factors that can facilitate (or hinder) its application. In particular, we conducted two focus group sessions: one with professionals and another with Master students in Computer Science. We used thematic analysis template (TAT) method for identifying patterns, themes, and interpretations in gathered data. We obtained a number of results that can be summarized as follows: (i) applying TDD without knowing advanced unit testing techniques can be difficult; (ii) refactoring (one of the phases of TDD) is not done as often as the process requires; (iii) there is a need for live feedback to let developers understand if TDD is being applied correctly; and (iv) the usefulness of TDD hinges on task and domain to which it is applied to.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	Proceedings - The 31st Annual ACM Symposium on Applied Computing, SAC 2016
Subtitle of host publication	Pisa, Italy April 4-8, 2016
Editors	Jiman Hong, Maria Lencastre
Place of Publication	New York NY USA
Publisher	Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
Pages	1422-1427
Number of pages	6
ISBN (Electronic)	9781450337397
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1145/2851613.2851778
Publication status	Published - 2016
Externally published	Yes
Event	ACM Symposium on Applied Computing 2016 - Pisa, Italy Duration: 4 Apr 2016 → 8 Apr 2016 Conference number: 31st http://www.sigapp.org/sac/sac2016/ https://dl.acm.org/doi/proceedings/10.1145/2851613 (Proceedings)

Conference

Conference	ACM Symposium on Applied Computing 2016
Abbreviated title	SAC 2016
Country/Territory	Italy
City	Pisa
Period	4/04/16 → 8/04/16
Internet address	http://www.sigapp.org/sac/sac2016/ https://dl.acm.org/doi/proceedings/10.1145/2851613 (Proceedings)

Keywords

Focus group
Qualitative study
Test driven development

Access to Document

10.1145/2851613.2851778

Cite this

Scanniello, G., Romano, S., Fucci, D., Turhan, B., & Juristo, N. (2016). Students' and professionals' perceptions of test-driven development: a focus group study. In J. Hong, & M. Lencastre (Eds.), Proceedings - The 31st Annual ACM Symposium on Applied Computing, SAC 2016: Pisa, Italy April 4-8, 2016 (pp. 1422-1427). Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). https://doi.org/10.1145/2851613.2851778

Scanniello, Giuseppe ; Romano, Simone ; Fucci, Davide et al. / Students' and professionals' perceptions of test-driven development : a focus group study. Proceedings - The 31st Annual ACM Symposium on Applied Computing, SAC 2016: Pisa, Italy April 4-8, 2016. editor / Jiman Hong ; Maria Lencastre. New York NY USA : Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), 2016. pp. 1422-1427

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abstract = "We have conducted a qualitative investigation on test-driven development (TDD) with focus groups to develop insights on the opinions of developers using TDD regarding the unintuitive process involved, its claimed effects, as well as the context factors that can facilitate (or hinder) its application. In particular, we conducted two focus group sessions: one with professionals and another with Master students in Computer Science. We used thematic analysis template (TAT) method for identifying patterns, themes, and interpretations in gathered data. We obtained a number of results that can be summarized as follows: (i) applying TDD without knowing advanced unit testing techniques can be difficult; (ii) refactoring (one of the phases of TDD) is not done as often as the process requires; (iii) there is a need for live feedback to let developers understand if TDD is being applied correctly; and (iv) the usefulness of TDD hinges on task and domain to which it is applied to.",

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Scanniello, G, Romano, S, Fucci, D, Turhan, B & Juristo, N 2016, Students' and professionals' perceptions of test-driven development: a focus group study. in J Hong & M Lencastre (eds), Proceedings - The 31st Annual ACM Symposium on Applied Computing, SAC 2016: Pisa, Italy April 4-8, 2016. Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), New York NY USA, pp. 1422-1427, ACM Symposium on Applied Computing 2016, Pisa, Italy, 4/04/16. https://doi.org/10.1145/2851613.2851778

Students' and professionals' perceptions of test-driven development: a focus group study. / Scanniello, Giuseppe; Romano, Simone; Fucci, Davide et al.
Proceedings - The 31st Annual ACM Symposium on Applied Computing, SAC 2016: Pisa, Italy April 4-8, 2016. ed. / Jiman Hong; Maria Lencastre. New York NY USA: Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), 2016. p. 1422-1427.

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference Paper › Research › peer-review

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AU - Romano, Simone

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AU - Turhan, Burak

AU - Juristo, Natalia

N1 - Conference code: 31st

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AB - We have conducted a qualitative investigation on test-driven development (TDD) with focus groups to develop insights on the opinions of developers using TDD regarding the unintuitive process involved, its claimed effects, as well as the context factors that can facilitate (or hinder) its application. In particular, we conducted two focus group sessions: one with professionals and another with Master students in Computer Science. We used thematic analysis template (TAT) method for identifying patterns, themes, and interpretations in gathered data. We obtained a number of results that can be summarized as follows: (i) applying TDD without knowing advanced unit testing techniques can be difficult; (ii) refactoring (one of the phases of TDD) is not done as often as the process requires; (iii) there is a need for live feedback to let developers understand if TDD is being applied correctly; and (iv) the usefulness of TDD hinges on task and domain to which it is applied to.

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Scanniello G, Romano S, Fucci D, Turhan B, Juristo N. Students' and professionals' perceptions of test-driven development: a focus group study. In Hong J, Lencastre M, editors, Proceedings - The 31st Annual ACM Symposium on Applied Computing, SAC 2016: Pisa, Italy April 4-8, 2016. New York NY USA: Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). 2016. p. 1422-1427 doi: 10.1145/2851613.2851778

Students' and professionals' perceptions of test-driven development: a focus group study

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