Integrating Testing Throughout the CS Curriculum

Software testing is a critical component of any software development lifecycle, but becoming an experienced software tester requires understanding many strategies for writing high-quality test cases and a significant amount of practice. Situated learning theory suggests that students should be exposed to things they would see in a professional workplace. In terms of software testing, students should be exposed to real-world software testing practices in a variety of contexts, from the simplest of programs to the very complex. The goal of this paper is to share our experience integrating software testing into our undergraduate curriculum at North Carolina State University. In this paper, we discuss how software testing is taught in our CS1 – Introductory Programming, CS2 – Software Development Fundamentals, and several other courses beyond CS2. Over the past 10 years of teaching software testing in introductory programming courses, we discuss lessons learned and highlight open concerns for future research.