Stages in teaching software testing

This paper describes how a staged approach to the development of students´ abilities to engineer software systems applies to the specific issue of teaching software testing. It evaluates the courses relating to software testing in the Software Engineering volume of Computing Curriculum 2001 against a theoretical model that has been developed from a well-established programme in software engineering, from the perspectives of how well the courses support the progressive development of both students´ knowledge of software testing and their ability to test software systems. It is shown that this progressive development is not well supported, and that to improve this some software testing material should be taught earlier than recommended.