Research Proposal ver 1.5

Test-Driven Development (TDD), has been argued to provide many benefits in improving code quality (e.g. defect reduction), with minimal impact to cost (e.g. productivity). However, it has been noted that it is difficult to teach TDD to novice programmers, as the idea that tests can be written before code is a radical concept for most software developers (Janzen Saiedian 2005). Another factor could be that software testing is by itself a broad and complex discipline to master. In order for TDD to be easily adopted, a possible solution would be to provide knowledge of systematic ways to generate comprehensive test cases. Such knowledge might provide the necessary “abstractions” pointed out by Robert V. Binder, and reduce the complexity of practicing TDD. In this project, we investigate methods and tools to support teaching TDD to beginner programmers. We seek to address problems such as “Why is TDD difficult to learn” and “How to aid novice programmers in picking up TDD”. Our Aim is to come up with a tool to aid in teaching TDD to novice programmers, by providing a systematic approach to generating test cases which can be applied in a “cookbook” fashion.