Results from a replicated experiment on the affective reactions of novice developers when applying test-driven developmentShow others and affiliations
2020 (English)In: AGILE PROCESSES IN SOFTWARE ENGINEERING AND EXTREME PROGRAMMING (XP 2020) / [ed] Stray V.,Hoda R.,Paasivaara M.,Kruchten P., Springer , 2020, Vol. 383, p. 223-239Conference paper, Published paper (Refereed)
Abstract [en]
Test-Driven Development (TDD) is an incremental approach to software development. Despite it is claimed to improve both quality of software and developers’ productivity, the research on the claimed effects of TDD has so far shown inconclusive results. Some researchers have ascribed these inconclusive results to the negative affective states that TDD would provoke. A previous (baseline) experiment has, therefore, studied the affective reactions of (novice) developers—i.e., 29 third-year undergraduates in Computer Science (CS)—when practicing TDD to implement software. To validate the results of the baseline experiment, we conducted a replicated experiment that studies the affective reactions of novice developers when applying TDD to develop software. Developers in the treatment group carried out a development task using TDD, while those in the control group used a non-TDD approach. To measure the affective reactions of developers, we used the Self-Assessment Manikin instrument complemented with a liking dimension. The most important differences between the baseline and replicated experiments are: (i) the kind of novice developers involved in the experiments—third-year vs. second-year undergraduates in CS from two different universities; and (ii) their number—29 vs. 59. The results of the replicated experiment do not show any difference in the affective reactions of novice developers. Instead, the results of the baseline experiment suggest that developers seem to like TDD less as compared to a non-TDD approach and that developers following TDD seem to like implementing code less than the other developers, while testing code seems to make them less happy. © The Author(s) 2020.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Springer , 2020. Vol. 383, p. 223-239
Series
Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, ISSN 1865-1348
Keywords [en]
Affective state, Experiment, Replication, TDD, Codes (symbols), Computer programming, Software testing, Affective reactions, Development tasks, Incremental approach, Quality of softwares, Replicated experiment, Test driven development, Treatment group, Software design
National Category
Computer Sciences
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:bth-20019DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-49392-9_15ISI: 000724681400015Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85086139587ISBN: 9783030493912 (print)OAI: oai:DiVA.org:bth-20019DiVA, id: diva2:1448815
Conference
21st International Conference on Agile Software Development, XP 2020; Copenhagen; Denmark; 8 June 2020 through 12 June 2020
Note
Open access
2020-06-292020-06-292021-12-16Bibliographically approved