All about K-Levels or learning Objectives extensively talked during prestigious certifications

Let us delve upon the various skill levels or knowledge levels for the testing industry being designated as K-Levels.

What are K-Levels of knowledge?K-Levels or “Knowledge Levels” basically refers to the prescription of an upper limit of skills or knowledge essential for a particular certification.

Hierarchy of K-Levels is described in globally recognized Bloom’s Texonomy of learning. Reaching a particular K-Level means that the individual has successfully achieved some measurable & meaningful objectives. How many K-Levels or learning objectives do we when talking about test certification?K-Levels begins at K-1 being the kindergarten level of learning in testing & ending up at K-6 with specialized knowledge as described below:

Level Area of Focus

Objectives to Achieve

Sample Examples to explain the abilities acquired

K - 1 Knowledge or Remembering

It means that the aspirant shall be able to recognize, remember and recall a concept or a term.

Aspirant shall be able to recognize the definition of a "failure" like:

# "Actual deviation of the system or its components from its expected delivery, service or result".

Or

# "Non-delivery of service to an end user or any other stakeholder"

K - 2 Comprehension or understanding

It means that the aspirant shall be able to select the reasons or explanations for statements related to the topic, and can summarize, compare, classify and give examples for the testing concept.

Aspirant shall be able to explain:

Example – 1: The reason why tests should be designed as early as possible:

# To find the most important defects first.

# To find defects when they are cheaper to remove.

Example – 2: The differences and similarities between integration and system testing:

# Differences: integration-testing concentrates on interfaces and interactions, and system testing concentrates on whole-system aspects, such as end to end processing.

# Similarities: testing more than one component, and can test non-functional aspects.

K - 3 Application

It means that the aspirant shall be able to select the correct application of a concept or technique and apply the knowledge already learnt to a another given context.

Aspirant shall be able to:

# Select test cases from a given state transition diagram in order to cover all transitions.

# Identify boundary values for valid and invalid partitions.

K - 4 Analysis

It means that the aspirant shall be able to separate the information related to a concept or technique into its constituent parts for better understanding, and can distinguish between facts and inferences.

Aspirant shall be able to:

# Describe which portions of an incident report are factual and which are inferred from the results.

# Understand the various options available for risk identification.

K - 5 Synthesis

It means that the aspirant shall be able to identify and build patterns in facts and information related to a concept or technique, and can create new meaning or structure from parts of a concept.

Aspirant shall be able to:

# Design a quality risk analysis processes which includes both rigorous and informal elements.

# Create a blended test strategy, which uses a dynamic strategy to balance an analytical strategy. Can combine aspects of different review processes to form an effective process for their organization.

K - 6 Evaluation

It means that the aspirant can judge the value of information and decide on its applicability in a given situation.

Aspirant shall be able to:

# Find out the type of information that should be gathered for an incident report.

# Find out the relative effectiveness and efficiency of different review processes or different testing techniques.

Best of Luck !!!

Article by:www.softwaretestinggenius.com

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