Testing Multiple Linear Regression Systems with Metamorphic Testing
This work addresses the reliability of predictive systems in economics, engineering, and science, but it is incremental as it applies an existing testing method to a specific domain.
The paper tackles the challenge of testing multiple linear regression systems, which lack test oracles, by proposing 11 Metamorphic Relations based on intrinsic mathematical properties, and demonstrates their effectiveness through mutation analysis on various regression programs.
Regression is one of the most commonly used statistical techniques. However, testing regression systems is a great challenge because of the absence of test oracle in general. In this paper, we show that Metamorphic Testing is an effective approach to test multiple linear regression systems. In doing so, we identify intrinsic mathematical properties of linear regression, and then propose 11 Metamorphic Relations to be used for testing. Their effectiveness is examined using mutation analysis with a range of different regression programs. We further look at how the testing could be adopted in a more effective way. Our work is applicable to examine the reliability of predictive systems based on regression that has been widely used in economics, engineering and science, as well as of the regression calculation manipulated by statistical users.