Article

First year students' impressions of pair programming in CS1

Authors:

Beth Simon,

Brian HanksAuthors Info & Claims

ICER '07: Proceedings of the third international workshop on Computing education research

Pages 73 - 86

https://doi.org/10.1145/1288580.1288591

Published: 15 September 2007 Publication History

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Abstract

Pair programming, as part of the Agile Development process, has noted benefits in professional software development scenarios. These successes have led to a rise in use of pair programming in educational settings, particularly in CS1. Specifically [6] has shown that students using pair programming in CS1 do better in a CS2 class (with solo programming) than students who don't pair in CS1. This paper seeks to address a similar question, but from a qualitative, student-focused approach. How do students define, experience and value the pair programming experience? How do they experience and value it compared to solo programming? Does pairing in CS1 impact their confidence in their abilities.

We report on semi-structured interviews with eleven subjects from two institutions where pair programming was used in CS1 and solo programming was used in the next course. Many of the responses met our expectations: students get stuck less and explore more ideas while pairing, and believe that pair programming helped them in CS1. Other responses were more surprising. Students reported that when solo programming that they were more confident and understood their programs better. Many students also said that they started work on their assignments earlier when soloing. Students also continue to use other students as resources even when working "solo".

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Cited By

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Szabo CFalkner NKnutas ADorodchi MSheard JKorhonen A(2018)Understanding the Effects of Lecturer Intervention on Computer Science Student BehaviourProceedings of the 2017 ITiCSE Conference on Working Group Reports10.1145/3174781.3174787(105-124)Online publication date: 30-Jan-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3174781.3174787
Seyam MMcCrickard DAlphonce CTims JCaspersen MEdwards S(2016)Teaching Mobile Development with Pair ProgrammingProceedings of the 47th ACM Technical Symposium on Computing Science Education10.1145/2839509.2844644(96-101)Online publication date: 17-Feb-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2839509.2844644
Seyam MMcCrickard DNiu SEsakia AKim W(2016)Teaching mobile application development through lectures, interactive tutorials, and Pair Programming2016 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE)10.1109/FIE.2016.7757533(1-9)Online publication date: Oct-2016
https://doi.org/10.1109/FIE.2016.7757533
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Index Terms

First year students' impressions of pair programming in CS1
1. Social and professional topics
  1. Professional topics
    1. Computing education
      1. Computing education programs
        Computer science education
        Information science education

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Published In

ICER '07: Proceedings of the third international workshop on Computing education research

September 2007

172 pages

ISBN:9781595938411

DOI:10.1145/1288580

General Chairs:
Richard Anderson
University of Washington, Seattle, WA
,
Sally Fincher
University of Kent at Canterbury, UK
,
Mark Guzdial
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 15 September 2007

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ICER07

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ICER07: International Computing Education Research Workshop

September 15 - 16, 2007

Georgia, Atlanta, USA

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ICER '07 Paper Acceptance Rate 14 of 24 submissions, 58%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 189 of 803 submissions, 24%

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Cited By

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Szabo CFalkner NKnutas ADorodchi MSheard JKorhonen A(2018)Understanding the Effects of Lecturer Intervention on Computer Science Student BehaviourProceedings of the 2017 ITiCSE Conference on Working Group Reports10.1145/3174781.3174787(105-124)Online publication date: 30-Jan-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3174781.3174787
Seyam MMcCrickard DAlphonce CTims JCaspersen MEdwards S(2016)Teaching Mobile Development with Pair ProgrammingProceedings of the 47th ACM Technical Symposium on Computing Science Education10.1145/2839509.2844644(96-101)Online publication date: 17-Feb-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2839509.2844644
Seyam MMcCrickard DNiu SEsakia AKim W(2016)Teaching mobile application development through lectures, interactive tutorials, and Pair Programming2016 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE)10.1109/FIE.2016.7757533(1-9)Online publication date: Oct-2016
https://doi.org/10.1109/FIE.2016.7757533
Williams L(2016)Pair ProgrammingEncyclopedia of Software Engineering10.1081/E-ESE-120044181(651-659)Online publication date: 28-Jul-2016
https://doi.org/10.1081/E-ESE-120044181
Rong GZhang HChen ZShao D(2011)Delivering PSP course in tertiary education environmentProceedings of the 2011 24th IEEE-CS Conference on Software Engineering Education and Training10.1109/CSEET.2011.5876098(284-293)Online publication date: 22-May-2011
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/CSEET.2011.5876098
Corney MTeague DThomas R(2010)Engaging students in programmingProceedings of the Twelfth Australasian Conference on Computing Education - Volume 10310.5555/1862219.1862230(63-72)Online publication date: 1-Jan-2010
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/1862219.1862230
Lister R(2010)CS EDUCATION RESEARCHThe naughties in CSEd researchACM Inroads10.1145/1721933.17219421:1(22-24)Online publication date: 1-Mar-2010
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1721933.1721942
Teague D(2009)A people-first approach to programmingProceedings of the Eleventh Australasian Conference on Computing Education - Volume 9510.5555/1862712.1862737(171-180)Online publication date: 1-Jan-2009
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/1862712.1862737
Begel ASimon BCaspersen MLister RClancy M(2008)Novice software developers, all over againProceedings of the Fourth international Workshop on Computing Education Research10.1145/1404520.1404522(3-14)Online publication date: 6-Sep-2008
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1404520.1404522
Williams LMcCrickard DLayman LHussein K(2008)Eleven Guidelines for Implementing Pair Programming in the ClassroomProceedings of the Agile 200810.1109/Agile.2008.12(445-452)Online publication date: 4-Aug-2008
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/Agile.2008.12

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