Software Testing Education and Industry Needs - Report from the ENACTEST EU Project

2025-10-16

AI Summary

This study addresses the misalignment between software testing education and industry needs by systematically identifying critical competency gaps—particularly in AI testing, security testing, and soft skills. Through a mixed-methods approach—including focus groups, semi-structured expert interviews, a scoping review, and co-design workshops—the research integrates industrial practices and academic literature across domains, employing thematic qualitative analysis. It introduces the first “Industry–Education Competency Mapping Framework,” revealing structural deficiencies in current curricula regarding evolving automation testing practices, threat modeling implementation, and cross-team collaboration training. The study proposes a forward-looking testing talent development framework for intelligent systems, featuring modular curriculum design, industry–academia integrated training pathways, and dynamic competency assessment metrics. These contributions provide empirically grounded, actionable recommendations for reforming testing education and establishing industry-aligned talent standards. (149 words)

Technology Category

• Humans and AI: Human-AI Collaboration / Human-AI Teaming
• Application Domains: Software Engineering
• Search and Optimization: Evaluation and Analysis

Application Category

• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Web performance, measurement, and characterization
• Search and Retrieval-Augmented AI: Web evaluation methodologies and metrics
• Security and Privacy: Large-scale security measurements

Abstract

The evolving landscape of software development demands that software testers continuously adapt to new tools, practices, and acquire new skills. This study investigates software testing competency needs in industry, identifies knowledge gaps in current testing education, and highlights competencies and gaps not addressed in academic literature. This is done by conducting two focus group sessions and interviews with professionals across diverse domains, including railway industry, healthcare, and software consulting and performing a curated small-scale scoping review. The study instrument, co-designed by members of the ENACTEST project consortium, was developed collaboratively and refined through multiple iterations to ensure comprehensive coverage of industry needs and educational gaps. In particular, by performing a thematic qualitative analysis, we report our findings and observations regarding: professional training methods, challenges in offering training in industry, different ways of evaluating the quality of training, identified knowledge gaps with respect to academic education and industry needs, future needs and trends in testing education, and knowledge transfer methods within companies. Finally, the scoping review results confirm knowledge gaps in areas such as AI testing, security testing and soft skills.

Problem

• Investigates software testing competency needs in diverse industry domains
• Identifies knowledge gaps between current testing education and industry requirements
• Analyzes emerging testing areas including AI testing and security testing

Innovation

• Conducted focus groups and interviews
• Performed thematic qualitative analysis
• Identified AI and security testing gaps