On the Current State of Academic Software Testing Education in Sweden

Well-trained software development personnel, in the art and science of software testing, will effectively and efficiently develop quality software products with potentially fewer, less-critical defects. Thus software testing education is considered to be an important part of curricula for a university degree in Computer Science or Information Systems. The objective of this paper is to determine how much dedicated knowledge in the field of software testing is taught within Swedish universities. To achieve this objective, a systematic search of syllabi for software testing-related courses was done. From 25 Swedish universities offering Computer Science (or related) degrees, 14 currently offer dedicated courses in software testing. Some findings include: 32% of the individual courses were offered at the undergraduate level; 28% of the universities offer courses for specialised testing training; and, for the vast majority of the universities, dedicated software testing courses account for about 5% of the total degree credits. While some universities fare better than others, the overall state of academic software testing education in Sweden is limited but promising.