Test case Effectiveness of higher order Mutation Testing

Effectiveness means how good a test case is in finding faults. Traditional mutation testing considers First Order Mutants (FOM) created by injection of a single fault. We focus on Higher Order Mutants (HOM) and in particular on subsuming HOM. Higher Order Mutants contain more than one fault. We report in this paper that a strongly subsuming HOM is more effective as it kills all the FOM’s from which it is constructed thereby reducing testing efforts without loss of effectiveness.