The higher education systems of Sweden and Pakistan differ significantly in structure, teaching practices, and educational culture, creating unique challenges for Pakistani teachers and students transitioning to Swedish universities. This study provides a comparative analysis of these higher education systems, focusing on their structures and teaching practices. Insights are drawn from interviews with Pakistani teachers who have experience studying and teaching in both countries.

These interviews offer a comparative view of teaching practices, assessment methods, and institutional cultures. The teachers share the challenges they faced when transitioning from teaching in Pakistan to Sweden and the strategies they employed to overcome these challenges. Additionally, the study highlights the challenges Pakistani students face in Swedish universities, such as cultural integration and academic adjustments. The teachers also recommended strategies to overcome the challenges students face during their studies in Swedish universities.

Comparing different education systems from structural aspects [1] or stakeholders' viewpoints [2] is not a new concept. Previous studies have compared Swedish and Pakistani educational systems [3, 4]; however, the unique context of identifying challenges specific to Pakistani teachers and students was not found in the literature. By identifying these challenges and strategies, this study aims to improve the educational experiences of Pakistani teachers and students in Sweden, fostering better academic integration and success. The findings offer practical insights and strategies based on the experiences of teachers who have navigated this transition. These recommendations provide valuable guidance for both individuals and institutions, with many strategies being implementable at the individual level. These insights facilitate smoother transitions, promote cultural integration, and support academic success in diverse educational environments.

Requirements validation ensures that the defined requirements conform to the description of the system and are consistent and complete. It is a complex activity that becomes more complicated for global software development (GSD). This study presents the issues associated with requirements validation in GSD and proposes a solution (RVGSD) to overcome these issues. We conducted a literature review and developed a prototype tool to implement RVGSD. The evaluation results show that RVGSD is easy to adopt in the industry and can potentially overcome various issues in the GSD context. Practitioners were satisfied with our framework in all aspects, including validation of requirements, fixing GSD issues, and overall performance. © 2023 IEEE.

Context: Practitioners working in large-scale software development face many challenges in regression testing activities. One of the reasons is the lack of a structured regression testing process. In this regard, checklists can help practitioners keep track of essential regression testing activities and add structure to the regression testing process to a certain extent. Objective: This study aims to introduce regression testing checklists so test managers/teams can use them: (1) to assess whether test teams/members are ready to begin regression testing, and (2) to keep track of essential regression testing activities while planning and executing regression tests. Method: We used interviews, workshops, and questionnaires to design, evolve, and evaluate regression testing checklists. In total, 25 practitioners from 12 companies participated in creating the checklist. Twenty-three of them participated in checklists evolution and evaluation. Results: We identified activities practitioners consider significant while planning, performing, and analyzing regression testing. We designed regression testing checklists based on these activities to help practitioners make informed decisions during regression testing. With the help of practitioners, we evolved these checklists into two iterations. Finally, the practitioners provided feedback on the proposed checklists. All respondents think the proposed checklists are useful and customizable for their environments, and 80% think checklists cover aspects essential for regression testing. Conclusion: The proposed regression testing checklists can be useful for test managers to assess their team/team members’ readiness and decide when to start and stop regression testing. The checklists can be used to record the steps required while planning and executing regression testing. Further, these checklists can provide a basis for structuring the regression testing process in varying contexts. © 2023 The Author(s)

Replication studies help solidify and extend knowledge by evaluating previous studies’ findings. Software engineering literature showed that too few replications are conducted focusing on software artifacts without the involvement of humans. This study aims to replicate an artifact-based study on software testing to address the gap related to replications. In this investigation, we focus on (i) providing a step-by-step guide of the replication, reflecting on challenges when replicating artifact-based testing research and (ii) evaluating the replicated study concerning the validity and robustness of the findings. We replicate a test case prioritization technique proposed by Kwon et al. We replicated the original study using six software programs, four from the original study and two additional software programs. We automated the steps of the original study using a Jupyter notebook to support future replications. Various general factors facilitating replications are identified, such as (1) the importance of documentation; (2) the need for assistance from the original authors; (3) issues in the maintenance of open-source repositories (e.g., concerning needed software dependencies, versioning); and (4) availability of scripts. We also noted observations specific to the study and its context, such as insights from using different mutation tools and strategies for mutant generation. We conclude that the study by Kwon et al. is partially replicable for small software programs and could be automated to facilitate software practitioners, given the availability of required information. However, it is hard to implement the technique for large software programs with the current guidelines. Based on lessons learned, we suggest that the authors of original studies need to publish their data and experimental setup to support the external replications. © 2023, The Author(s).

Regression testing is challenging because of its complexity and the amount of effort and time it requires, especially in large-scale environments with continuous integration and delivery. Regression test selection and prioritization techniques have been proposed in the literature to address the regression testing challenges, but adoption rates of these techniques in industry are not encouraging. One of the possible reasons could be the disparity in the regression testing goals in industry and literature. 

This work compares the research perspective to industry practice on regression testing goals, corresponding information needs, and metrics required to evaluate these goals. We have conducted a literature review of 44 research papers and a survey with 56 testing practitioners. The survey comprises 11 interviews and 45 responses to an online questionnaire. 

We identified that industry and research accentuate different regression testing goals. For instance, the literature emphasizes increasing the fault detection rates of test suites and early identification of critical faults. In contrast, the practitioners' focus is on test suite maintenance, controlled fault slippage, and awareness of changes. Similarly, the literature suggests maintaining information needs from test case execution histories to evaluate regression testing techniques based on various metrics, whereas, at large, the practitioners do not use the metrics suggested in the literature. 

To bridge the research and practice gap, based on the literature and survey findings, we have created a goal-question-metric (GQM) model that maps the regression testing goals, associated information needs, and metrics from both perspectives. The GQM model can guide researchers in proposing new techniques closer to industry contexts. Practitioners can benefit from information needs and metrics presented in the literature and can use GQM as a tool to follow their regression testing goals. 

Background

Regression testing is a complex and challenging activity and consumes a significant portion of software maintenance costs. Researchers are proposing various techniques to deal with the cost and complexity of regression testing. Yet, practitioners face various challenges when planning and executing regression testing. One of the main reasons is the disparity between research and practice perspectives on the goals and challenges of regression testing. In addition, it is difficult for practitioners to find techniques relevant to their context, needs, and goals because most proposed techniques lack contextual information.

Objective

This work aims to understand the challenges to regression testing practice and find ways to improve it. To fulfil this aim, we have the following objectives:

1) understanding the current state of regression testing practice, goals, and challenges,

2) finding ways to utilize regression testing research in practice, and

3) providing support in structuring and improving regression testing practice. 

Method

We have utilized various research methods, including literature reviews, workshops, focus groups, case studies, surveys, and experiments, to conduct the studies for this thesis.

Results

Research and practice stress different goals, and both follow their priorities. Researchers propose new regression testing techniques to increase the test suite's fault detection rate and maximise coverage. The practitioners consider test suite maintenance, controlled fault slippage, and confidence their priority goals. The practitioners rely on expert judgment instead of a well-defined regression testing process. They face various challenges in regression testing, such as time to test, test suit maintenance, lack of communication, lack of strategy, lack of assessment, and issues in test case selection and prioritization. 

We have proposed a GQM model representing research and practice perspectives on regression testing goals. The proposed model can help reduce disparities in research and practice perspectives and cope with the lack of assessment. 

We have created regression testing taxonomies to guide practitioners in finding techniques suitable to their product context, goals, and needs.  Further, based on the experiences of replicating a regression testing technique, we have provided guidelines for future replications and adoption of regression testing techniques.

Finally, we have designed regression testing checklists to support practitioners in decision-making while planning and performing regression testing. Practitioners who evaluated the checklists reported that the checklists covered essential aspects of regression testing and were useful and customizable to their context.

Conclusions

The thesis points out the gap in research and practice perspectives of regression testing. The regression testing challenges identified in this thesis are the evidence that either research does not consider these challenges or practitioners are unaware of how to replicate the regression testing research into their context. The GQM model presented in this thesis is a step toward reducing the research and practice gap in regression testing. Furthermore, the taxonomies and the replication experiment provide a way forward to adopting regression testing research. Finally, the checklists proposed in this thesis could help improve communication and regression test strategy. Moreover, the checklists will provide a basis for structuring and improving regression testing practice.

Authorship ethics is a central topic of discussion in research ethics fora. There are various guidelines for authorship (i.e., naming and order). It is not easy to decide the authorship in the presence of varying authorship guidelines. This paper gives an overview of research on authorship practices and issues. It presents a review of 16 empirical research papers published between 2014 - 2020. The objective is to learn how various research disciplines handle authorship. What are the authorship practices in various research disciplines, and what are the issues associated with these practices © 2021 IEEE.

Testing plays a vital role for assuring software quality. Among the activities performed during testing process, test cases generation is a challenging and labor intensive task. Test case generation techniques based on UML models are getting the attention of researchers and practitioners. This study provides a systematic mapping of test case generation techniques based on interaction diagrams. The study compares the test case generation techniques, regarding their capabilities and limitations, and it also assesses the reporting quality of the primary studies. It has been revealed that UML interaction diagrams based techniques are mainly used for integration testing. The majority of the techniques are using sequence diagrams as input models, while some are using collaboration. A notable number of techniques are using interaction diagram along with some other UML diagram for test case generation. These techniques are mainly focusing on interaction, scenario, operational, concurrency, synchronization and deadlock related faults.

From the results of this study, we can conclude that the studies presenting test case generation techniques using UML interaction diagrams failed to illustrate the use of rigorous methodology, and these techniques did not demonstrate the empirical evaluation in an industrial context. Our study revealed the need for tool support to facilitate the transfer of solutions to industry.

Analyzing conversational behavior is a primary task in the field of sentiment analysis. Different researchers have proposed their models to perform the sentiment analysis of social media discussions. Existing approaches mainly studying the conversational behavior based on the text in the conversation. In any discussion, the users could have different viewpoints about the topic of conversation. A user can agree or disagree on the topic of discussion. Agreement of a user to the topic is called a stance, and if the user disagrees to the topic, we refer it as disagreement. The classification of the users based on stance and disagreement is not a well-researched area, and need to be explored further. In this work, we have proposed a computational model to classify the members according to stance or disagreement. The proposed model uses the novel approach, and it is a hybrid of topic modeling and VADER (Valence Aware Dictionary and sEntiment Reasoner). To evaluate the proposed model, we have conducted an experiment, and we did use the WhatsApp group discussion, Facebook comments as a dataset. We also compared the proposed model with two baseline approach, topic modeling, and VADER. From the results, we can conclude that the proposed model can effectively classify social media users based on disagreement and stance. © 2020, Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

Context: A majority of the regression testing techniques proposed by the research have not been adopted in industry. To increase adoption rates, we need to better understand the practitioners' perspectives on regression testing.

Objective: This study aims at exploring the regression testing state of practice in the large-scale embedded software development. The study has two objectives, 1) to highlight the potential challenges in practice, and 2) to identify the industry-relevant research areas regarding regression testing.

Method: We conducted a qualitative study in two large-scale embedded software development companies, where we carried out semi-structured interviews with representatives from five software testing teams. We did conduct the detailed review of the process documentation of the companies to complement/validate the findings of the interviews.

Results: Mostly, the practitioners run regression testing with a selected scope, the selection of scope depends upon the size, complexity, and location of the change. Test cases are prioritized on the basis of risk and critical functionality. The practitioners rely on their knowledge and experience for the decision making regarding selection and prioritization of test cases.The companies are using both automated and manual regression testing, and mainly they rely on in-house developed tools for test automation. The challenges identified in the companies are: time to test, information management, test suite maintenance, lack of communication, test selection/prioritization, lack of assessment, etc. The proposed improvements are in line with the identified challenges. Regression testing goals identified in this study are customer satisfaction, critical defect detection, confidence, effectiveness, efficiency, and controlled slip through of faults.

Conclusions: Considering the current state of practice and identified challenges we conclude that there is a need to reconsider the regression test strategy in the companies. Researchers need to analyze the industry perspective while proposing new regression testing techniques. The industry-academia collaboration projects would be a good platform in this regard.