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.