Friday, 22 March 2019
The update to the ISTQB Foundation Syllabus is a meaningful and welcome one, seven years since the release of the last update in 2011. As everyone connected with the IT industry knows, this is a long time! So what are the differences, and how does this benefit learners?
Feedback from our delegates and trainers
One of the biggest and most consistent themes to the feedback we have received in our post-course questionnaires over the years is that there was too much material and insufficient time to get through it all, revise and do practice papers.
Trainers were on a tight deadline to get through the material, leaving only limited time for questions and interaction with delegates, something we strongly believe is important for delegates to get the most out of our training courses.
This used to frustrate our delegates, but also our trainers - who are experienced testing practitioners only too keen to apply their knowledge to real life queries and offer advice.
Changes
The syllabus has had an extensive re-work, with the ISTQB putting a lot of effort into the document that forms the baseline of all the testing certifications.
The updates have brought the syllabus up to date with the latest technologies, including Agile, IoT, DevOps and CI/CD. The old material, written by multiple authors, has been streamlined, with overlap between learning objectives removed and consistency improved, both within the syllabus and with the other accredited testing courses, which is a good thing.
The new course has shifted more towards what testers early in their careers need to know before embarking on additional training. White box testing has been dramatically reduced, a topic that took a lot of explaining and took valuable time. The emphasis now is much more on black box test design techniques, which will be significantly more useful for testers in the real world.
There are now specific learning objectives for Equivalence Partitioning, Boundary Value Analysis, Decision Tables and State transitions, while the white box section has had its learning objectives reduced to K2 level (understand, explain, give reasons, compare, etc) rather than K3 (apply, use). There have been some changes to the reviews section, with some increased emphasis on reviews and the adjustment of the involved steps.
Our course now
Our course has been updated and accredited by the British Computer Society, and we are getting really positive feedback from delegates.
We believe the new version offers delegates an up to date, Agile-centric course, providing relevant information and practical examples that will help them in their jobs and their careers.
Find out more and book
To book one of our public courses, or request a private Training for Teams course on your site, find out more on our ISTQB-BCS Foundation Certificate page.
