Software Testing is Serious Business: A Holistic Approach

软件测试是软件生命周期中至关重要的支持过程。对于软件行业来说，不幸的是，软件测试人员的角色被污名化了，主要是因为与该角色相关的误解，部分原因是给予软件测试人员的待遇。因此，软件测试员的角色似乎不是软件从业者的首选角色之一。软件测试思维模式的彻底转变是必要的，以便使软件工程师能够创建可依赖的软件支持的世界。有必要通过使用职业发展和其他相关的非技术和技术方法来扭转专业人员对这一角色的看法，以加强软件测试人员为项目带来的关键维度。有人指出，社会因素在软件测试实践中发挥着重要作用。这项研究解决了软件测试领域以前未被雕琢的推动者，即对测试和测试可视化的社会洞察力。这两个推动因素将带来这一研究计划的三项关键创新，这三项创新结合在一起将极大地扩展软件工程师在测试方面所需的知识。这一理解将支持构建软件工程师在测试期间所需的理论。拟议的研究项目是PI研究愿景的重要组成部分，旨在追求以下三个目标：(A)通过研究软件测试在软件工程专业学生和软件从业者中的(不)受欢迎程度，描述软件测试的人类刺激和抑制因素的模型；(B)包含各种软件开发数据的新型测试分析引擎。这些分析使软件工程师能够深入了解个人和团队级别的测试活动；以及(C)一种新的测试可视化方法，有助于理解测试场景并突出现有测试场景中变化的可能性。由此获得的见解拓宽了测试场景的范围，刺激了最佳情况和最坏情况测试场景的创建，并使各种测试场景的创建更容易和更有效。

Software testing is a crucial supporting processes of the software life cycle. Unfortunately for the software industry, the role of software tester is stigmatized, mostly due to misconceptions associated with the role and partly because the treatment given to software testers. Therefore the role of software tester does not appear to be one of the preferred roles among software practitioners. A complete shift in the software testing mindset is necessary in order to empower software engineers to create software-enabled world that can be relied upon. There is a need for reversing the professional's perceptions regarding this role by using career progression and other related approaches, both non-technical and technical, to reinforce the crucial dimension that software testers brings to the projects. It has been pointed out that social factors play a significant role in software testing practices. This research addresses previously uncarved enablers in the realm of software testing, namely social insight into testing and test visualization. These two enablers will bring about the three key innovations of this research program that combined will greatly expand the knowledge needed by software engineers with regard to testing. This understanding will support building the theory needed by software engineers during testing. The proposed research projects are a vital component of the PI's research vision and are intended to pursue the following three objectives: (a) a model describing human stimuli and inhibitors for software testing by studying the (un)popularity of software testing among software engineering students and software practitioners; (b) a novel test analytics engine that encompasses a wide variety of software development data. These analytics enable software engineers to get insight into test activities at the personal and team level; and (c) a new test visualization approach that facilitates understanding test scenarios and highlighting possibilities for variation in existing test scenarios. The insights thus obtained broaden the scope of test scenarios, stimulating the creation of both best case and worst case test scenarios and making the creation of variant test scenarios easier and more effective.