This question appears in Mumbai University > Software Testing & Quality Assurance Subject

Marks: 5 M

Year: Dec 2015

Test Case Design Effectiveness :

• The objectives of test case design effectiveness metric is to

  (i) Measure the “defect revealing ability” of the test suite and

  (ii) Use the metric to improve the test design process.

• During system level testing, defects are revealed due to the execution of planned test cases.

• In addition to these defects, new defects are found during testing for which no test cases have been planned.

• For these new defects, new test cases are designed, which are called as test case escaped (TCE). Test escapes occur because of deficiencies in the test design process. This happens because the test engineers get new ideas while executing the planned test cases.

• A metric commonly used in the industry to measure test case design effectiveness is the test case design yield (TCDY), defined as

  TCDY = ((NPT/NPT + number of TCE)) * 100%

Where NPT is the Number of Planned Test Cases and TCE is the Test Case Escaped

• The TCDY is also used to measure the effectiveness of a particular testing phase.

• For example, the system integration manager may want to know the TCDY value for his or her system integration testing.