Online MBPeT dashboard : enabling performance testing as a service in the cloud

In this thesis, tool support is addressed for the combined disciplines of Model-based testing and performance testing. Model-based testing (MBT) utilizes abstract behavioral models to automate test generation, thus decreasing time and cost of test creation. MBT is a functional testing technique, thereby focusing on output, behavior, and functionality. Performance testing, however, is non-functional and is concerned with responsiveness and stability under various load conditions. MBPeT (Model-Based Performance evaluation Tool) is one such tool which utilizes probabilistic models, representing dynamic real-world user behavior patterns, to generate synthetic workload against a System Under Test and in turn carry out performance analysis based on key performance indicators (KPI). Developed at Åbo Akademi University, the MBPeT tool is currently comprised of a downloadable command-line based tool as well as a graphical user interface. The goal of this thesis project is two-fold: 1) to extend the existing MBPeT tool by deploying it as a web-based application, thereby removing the requirement of local installation, and 2) to design a user interface for this web application which will add new user interaction paradigms to the existing feature set of the tool. All phases of the MBPeT process will be realized via this single web deployment location including probabilistic model creation, test configurations, test session execution against a SUT with real-time monitoring of user configurable metric, and final test report generation and display. This web application (MBPeT Dashboard) is implemented with the Java programming language on top of the Vaadin framework for rich internet application development. The Vaadin framework handles the complicated web communications processes and front-end technologies, freeing developers to implement the business logic as well as the user interface in pure Java. A number of experiments are run in a case study environment to validate the functionality of the newly developed Dashboard application as well as the scalability of the solution implemented in handling multiple concurrent users. The results support a successful solution with regards to the functional and performance criteria defined, while improvements and optimizations are suggested to increase both of these factors.

To Integrate Or Not: A Comparison of the English Skills of Finnish Students in Mainstream Education and Content and Language Integrated Learning

The objective of the thesis was to study the possible linguistic differences of English of Finnish mainstream students and Finnish students following content and language integrated learning (CLIL), in terms of the given language test. The difference of test results between the test groups was further analyzed in more detail. The research was carried out by comparing the 9th grade students of the Finnish comprehensive school (the mainstream group) and CLIL students of the 9th grade of the Finnish comprehensive school (the CLIL group). The comparison was based on the national language test for the 9th grade students of the Finnish comprehensive school 2006 (A-English), produced by Sukol-Palvelu, owned by the Federation of Foreign Language Teachers in Finland SUKOL. The mainstream group of the present study consisted of 30 students, whereas the CLIL group included 27 students. Testing was carried out in spring 2007. The test results of the mainstream group (average of 64.1% out of the maximum score) were consistent with the results of the national average (63.9%). The average score of the CLIL students for the present study was 83.3% out of the maximum score. The results of the two groups in question were rather similar in the tasks measuring the skill of listening comprehension, in addition to one of the reading comprehension tasks. Moreover, a particular task with requirements of cultural and reactional skills produced results rather similar between the test groups. The differences between the results of the mainstream group and the CLIL group were most evident in three particular tasks. In general, the CLIL group performed clearly better than the mainstream group in the task measuring the knowledge of the polite conversational manners of the English-speaking world and in the tasks with requirements of lexical and structural knowledge of English. However, the writing task resulted in the most evident difference of results between the groups. In other words, the CLIL students of the present study were clearly more capable of producing English language with more varied vocabulary and more complex structures than the mainstream students. Thus, it might be argued whether the CLIL programme is to enhance the students´ performance in the productive skill of writing in particular. As a result, it might be useful to consider the possibilities of the CLIL programme in developing certain linguistic skills of the mainstream students of English as well.