The impact of gamification in unit testing

Abstract

Unit testing is one of the most widely used tools to find bugs in software projects. The task of writing unit test is by some considered to be a tedious task. When finding a task tedious there may be a lack in motivation which can reduce the quality of the tests resulting in less bugs found. [Objective] In this research, we examine gamification and its effect on developer motivation and quality of unit tests. [Method] We have conducted a controlled experiment with 14 subjects that wrote unit tests to find bugs where we measured the motivation levels, the number of bugs found and the percentage of path coverage. [Results] The results did show a statistically significant difference between the control group and the experiment group where the experiment group was more motivated and found more bugs. However, the results did not show a statistically significant difference for path coverage. [Conclusion] Our research showed statistically significant difference when using gamification for motivation and number of bugs found, not when looking a path coverage. However, further research is required with a larger number of subjects and over a longer period of time to find more conclusive results.