Title: Analysis of the gap between software testing courses at universities and the needed skills by industry

Authors: Samer Hanna

Addresses: Software Engineering Department, Faculty of Information Technology, Middle East University, Amman, Jordan

Abstract: It is important that software testing courses at universities provide students with testing skills that are close to the skills needed by industry. To investigate if these courses do accomplish this role, this research provides comparison and empirical analysis of the topics provided by 80 software testing courses in nine countries around the world and the skills that are required by 400 software testing related job advertisements in the same investigated countries. Based on this analysis, the research provides a taxonomy of the testing topics by universities and the needed skills by industry. The main knowledge gaps between testing courses and job ads are explained in detail. The results revealed that the testing techniques with huge gap with industry are load testing, regression testing, performance testing, functional testing, penetration testing, accessibility testing, exploratory testing and compatibility testing. The gaps in other areas of testing are also specified by the research. Providing data analysis of the required testing skills by industry and comparing these skills with the topics of testing courses will help universities to modify the topics and learning outcomes of these courses to make them closer to industrial needs.

Keywords: academia industry gap; software testing; software testing topics; software testing education; software testing tools; data analysis.

DOI: 10.1504/IJLT.2024.139038

International Journal of Learning Technology, 2024 Vol.19 No.2, pp.203 - 242

Received: 10 Feb 2023
Accepted: 25 Jun 2023
Published online: 10 Jun 2024 *

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