Using Test Data to Improve Software Quality: Problems and Suggestions
Abstract
a result, testing may appear complete while important defects remain hidden. Based on recent studies on test suite quality, search-based test
generation, software test data management, synthetic test data, and requirement-based testing, this paper discusses how test data affects software quality. It analyzes problems in coverage, realism, traceability, maintenance, privacy protection, and defect feedback. It then proposes
suggestions including requirement- and risk-driven data design, boundary and negative data strengthening, test data repositories, privacyaware synthetic data, and defect-linked updates. The main argument is that test data should be treated as a managed quality asset rather than a
temporary input.
Keywords
Full Text:
PDFReferences
[1] Tran, H. K. V., Ali, N. B., Unterkalmsteiner, M., Borstler, J., & Chatzipetrou, P. (2025). Quality attributes of test cases and test suites:
Importance & challenges from practitioners' perspectives. Software Quality Journal, 33, 9. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11219-024-09698-w
[2] Fontes, A., Gay, G., & Feldt, R. (2025). Exploring the interaction of code coverage and non-coverage objectives in search-based test
generation. Software Testing, Verification and Reliability, 35, e70009. https://doi.org/10.1002/stvr.70009
[3] Ouedraogo, W. C., Plein, L., Kabore, K., Habib, A., Klein, J., Lo, D., & Bissyande, T. F. (2025). Enriching automatic test case generation by
extracting relevant test inputs from bug reports. Empirical Software Engineering, 30, 85. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10664-025-10635-z
[4] Tammisto, M.-A., Shah, F. A., Rodriguez, D., & Pfahl, D. (2025). The challenge of generating and evolving real-life like synthetic test
data without accessing real-world raw data: A systematic review. Expert Systems, 42, e70164. https://doi.org/10.1111/exsy.70164
[5] Gao, L., Qiu, J., & Chen, G. (2024). Software test data management based on knowledge graph. Informatica, 48(16), 27-36. https://doi.
org/10.31449/inf.v48i16.6416
[6] Ilays, I., Hafeez, Y., Almashfi, N., Ali, S., Humayun, M., Aqib, M., & Alwakid, G. (2024). Towards improving the quality of requirement
and testing process in agile software development: An empirical study. Computers, Materials & Continua. https://doi.org/10.32604/
cmc.2024.053830
[7] Tasarsu, M., Tokmak, A. V., & Catal, C. (2026). Test case generation using large language models: A systematic literature review. Cluster Computing, 29, 227. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10586-026-06021-z
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.70711/aitr.v4i3.9928
Refbacks
- There are currently no refbacks.