Model-Based Testing Essentials - Guide to the ISTQB Certified Model-Based Tester

8DERIVING TESTS FROM AN MBT MODEL

This chapter covers the learning objectives of syllabus Chapter 3 “Selection Criteria for Test Case Generation” except Section 3.1.4 “Relation to CTFL Test Design Techniques,” which has been introduced in Chapter 7.

8.1 TAXONOMY OF SELECTION CRITERIA

We have seen in Chapter 3 that we need both a model-based testing (MBT) model and test selection criteria to drive test generation with respect to our test objectives. The MBT model provides an abstraction of “what” shall be tested, whereas the test selection criteria provide the “how-to” or rather the “to which extent” shall be tested.

The number of different test selection criteria applied in MBT is quite high. Several authors established taxonomies of selection criteria in literature (see Refs. [39–41]). From these previous publications, the ISTQB MBT syllabus authors selected six families of test selection criteria, corresponding to the most commonly used criteria in industrial application:

• requirements coverage
• structural model coverage
• data coverage
• random test selection
• scenario- or pattern-based test selection
• project-driven test selection.

For further reading, for example, on current research on fault-based test case selection based on model mutation,¹ please refer to Ref. [41] and other, more recent publications.

8.1.1 Requirements Coverage

Requirements coverage is a very popular selection criterion for tests conducted against a requirements specification. We reach full requirements ...