Introducing a Mock Technique into a Learning Support System for Program Design Based on Testability

Abstract

While software development requires automated testing skills, there are few opportunities for test education during a novice programming learning phase. Therefore, we constructed a learning support system that can conduct an exercise to analyze and improve program design from the viewpoint of Testability in the design of the component to be tested. However, our previous system did not support design improvement using mock techniques, and the method of improvement that learners could choose was limited. Therefore, in this paper, we extended the system to support learning for analyzing and improving the design of the test target component with mock techniques. We experimented to evaluate the learning effect of the system whether the learners increase their skills of analyzing and improving the design of test target components, even in the situation where applying object-oriented design principles are required for the learners.