Empirical Studies of Pair Programming for CS/SE Teaching in Higher Education: A Systematic Literature Review

Abstract

OBJECTIVE-The objective of this paper is to present the current evidence relative to the effectiveness of pair programming (PP) as a pedagogical tool in higher education CS/SE courses. METHOD-We performed a systematic literature review (SLR) of empirical studies that investigated factors affecting the effectiveness of PP for CS/SE students and studies that measured the effectiveness of PP for CS/SE students. RESULTS-Seventy four (74) papers were used in our synthesis of evidence, and 14 compatibility factors that can potentially affect PPʼs effectiveness as a pedagogical tool were identified. Results showed that studentsʼ skill level was the factor that affected PPʼs effectiveness the most. The most common measure used to gauge PPʼs effectiveness was time spent on programming. In addition, studentsʼ satisfaction when using PP was overall higher than when working solo. Our meta-analyses showed that PP was effective in improving studentsʼ grades on assignments. Finally, in the studies that used quality as a measure of effectiveness, the number of test cases succeeded, academic performance, and expert opinion were the quality measures mostly applied. CONCLUSIONS-The results of this SLR show two clear gaps in this research field: i) lack of studies focusing on pair compatibility factors aimed at making PP an effective pedagogical tool; ii) a lack of studies investigating PP for software design/modeling tasks in conjunction with programming tasks.

The Impact of Lecture Attendance on Exams for Novice Programming Students

“…So, teachers are always looking for effective teaching methods to enhance student motivation, problem solving and metacognitive skills in learning programming. Notably, there has been much research done on how to teach programming courses in interesting and effective ways to novices [14,18,19,20,21,22]. However, those proponents accepted that "formal lectures are not a useful way of teaching programming" [10,23].…”

Exploring Pair Programming Benefits for MIS Majors

“…Pair programming is a collaborative programming practice that has been studied often with computer science students and professional programmers (Nagappan et al, 2003;Salleh, Mendes, & Grundy, 2011;VanDeGrift, 2004;Woszczynski, Guthrie & Shade, 2005). Pair programming places participants in dyads, working in tandem at one computer to complete programming assignments.…”

“…A review of 73 pair programming studies identified several benefits of this practice, including technical productivity (time spent on the program), improved program/design quality, better academic performance, and greater perceived satisfaction (Salleh et al 2011). Pair programming improved retention within the CS major, which was defined as students who were more likely to pursue a higher level programming course and/or eventually to pursue a degree in CS (McDowell, Werner, Bullock, & Fernald, 2006).…”

“…The benefits to be explored were based on four broad categories identified by Salleh et al (2011) in their research: technical productivity, program/design quality, academic performance, and perceived satisfaction. MIS undergraduate students in the required introductory software design course were the participants in the experiment, which was conducted at a large university in the southeast United States.…”

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