Domain Testing: Divide and Conquer - Testing Education

Chapter 7: Conclusion
7.01 Domain Testing Training – Where Does it Stand?
After evaluation of the tests, it has been observed that there were some plus points
and some minus points about the learners’ performance. I evaluated the paper-
based tests. As you can see from the results presented in the previous chapter, the
learners’ performance improved a lot from the pretest to the posttest. But when it
came to testing a real computer-based application, while the learners did do some
things very well, they failed in some ways.
The performance tests were evaluated by Dr. Cem Kaner, James Bach and
Pat McGee. They have noted some pluses and minuses with the learners’
performance and thus the training material. According to these three evaluators, the
learners’ performance is not comparable to the standard of a tester during a job
interview who has one year’s experience and who considers herself reasonably
good at domain testing. The detailed evaluation reports of the performance tests are
available in appendices X, Y and Z, respectively.
7.01.01 Pluses
Kaner (2003) cited some plus points of the learners’ performance in the
performance test for the page setup feature of Microsoft’s PowerPoint application,
which are mentioned below:
These students’ tables—especially the specific identification of dimensions
along which data entered into the variable can vary—look unusually
sophisticated for students who have no prior test experience or education
and only 15 hours of instruction. The 23 students’ analyses were
remarkably consistent. Their tables were structured the same way and
almost all identified the same dimensions. For example, for the Page Width
variable (a floating point field that can range from 1 to 56 inches), students
consistently identified three dimensions: page width (in inches), number of
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