  Context. Recently, a family of studies highlighted the unpopularity of
software testing careers among undergraduate students in software engineering
and computer science courses. The original study and its replications explored
the perception of students in universities in four countries (Cana-da, China,
India, and Malaysia), and indicated that most students do not consider a career
in software testing as an option after graduation. This scenario represents a
problem for the software industry since the lack of skilled testing
professionals might decrease the quality of software projects and increase the
number of unsuccessful projects. Goal. The present study aims to replicate, in
Brazil, the studies conducted in the other four countries to establish
comparisons and support the development of strategies to improve the visibility
and importance of software testing among undergraduate students across the
globe. Method. We followed the same protocol in the original study to collect
data using a questionnaire and analyzed the answers using descriptive
statistics and qualitative data analysis. Results. Our findings indicate
similarities among the results obtained in Brazil in comparison to those
obtained from other countries. We observed that students are not motivated to
follow a testing career in the software industry based on a belief that testing
activities lack challenges and opportunities for continuous learning.
Conclusions. In summary, students seem to be interested in learning more about
software testing. However, the lack of discussions about the theme in software
development courses, as well as the limited offer of courses focused on
software quality at the university level reduce the visibility of this area,
which causes a decrease in the interest in this career.
