Affective reactions and test-driven development: Results from three experiments and a survey

The research on the claimed effects of Test-Driven Development (TDD) on software quality and developers’ productivity has shown inconclusive results. Some researchers have ascribed such results to the negative affective reactions that TDD would provoke when developers apply it. In this paper, we stu...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Journal of systems and software Vol. 185; p. 111154
Main Authors: Baldassarre, Maria Teresa, Caivano, Danilo, Fucci, Davide, Romano, Simone, Scanniello, Giuseppe
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Elsevier Inc 01.03.2022
Subjects:
Affective reactions
Affective state
Codes (symbols)
Computer software selection and evaluation
Development approach
Development results
Experiment
Moderators
Replicated experiment
Replication
SAM
Sams
Software testing
Survey
Surveys
TDD
Test driven development
Unit testing
Replication
Survey
Affective state
TDD
Experiment
SAM
ISSN:0164-1212, 1873-1228, 1873-1228
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:The research on the claimed effects of Test-Driven Development (TDD) on software quality and developers’ productivity has shown inconclusive results. Some researchers have ascribed such results to the negative affective reactions that TDD would provoke when developers apply it. In this paper, we studied whether and in which phases TDD influences the affective states of developers, who are new to this development approach. To that end, we conducted a baseline experiment and two replications, and analyzed the data from these experiments both individually and jointly. Also, we performed methodological triangulation by means of an explanatory survey, whose respondents were experienced with TDD. The results of the baseline experiment suggested that developers like TDD significantly less, compared to a non-TDD approach. Also, developers who apply TDD like implementing production code significantly less than those who apply a non-TDD approach, while testing production code makes TDD developers significantly less happy. These results were not confirmed in the replicated experiments. We found that the moderator that better explains these differences across experiments is experience (in months) with unit testing, practiced in a test-last manner. The higher the experience with unit testing, the more negative the affective reactions caused by TDD. The results from the survey seem to confirm the role of this moderator. •Experience with unit testing causes more negative affective reactions to TDD.•When learning TDD, it is better to have little experience with unit testing.•Negative affective reactions to TDD can explain contrasting results of TDD research.
ISSN:0164-1212
1873-1228
1873-1228
DOI:10.1016/j.jss.2021.111154