Empirical studies of pair programming for CS/SE teaching in higher education: a systematic literature review

Salleh, Norsaremah and Mendes, Emilia and Grundy, John C. (2011) Empirical studies of pair programming for CS/SE teaching in higher education: a systematic literature review. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, 37 (4). pp. 509-525. ISSN 0098-5589

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Abstract

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. 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. Seventy-four papers were used in our synthesis of evidence, and 14 compatibility factors that can potentially affect PP's effectiveness as a pedagogical tool were identified. Results showed that students' skill level was the factor that affected PP's effectiveness the most. The most common measure used to gauge PP's effectiveness was time spent on programming. In addition, students' satisfaction when using PP was overall higher than when working solo. Our meta-analyses showed that PP was effective in improving students' 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. The results of this SLR show two clear gaps in this research field: 1) a lack of studies focusing on pair compatibility factors aimed at making PP an effective pedagogical tool and 2) a lack of studies investigating PP for software design/modeling tasks in conjunction with programming tasks.

Item Type:	Article (Journal)
Additional Information:	3705/1338
Uncontrolled Keywords:	empirical studies, pair programming, systematic review
Subjects:	T Technology > T Technology (General) T Technology > T Technology (General) > T61 Technical education. Technical schools
Kulliyyahs/Centres/Divisions/Institutes (Can select more than one option. Press CONTROL button):	Kulliyyah of Information and Communication Technology Kulliyyah of Information and Communication Technology Kulliyyah of Information and Communication Technology > Department of Computer Science Kulliyyah of Information and Communication Technology > Department of Computer Science
Depositing User:	Dr Norsaremah Salleh
Date Deposited:	09 Aug 2011 15:17
Last Modified:	27 Jun 2013 14:39
URI:	http://irep.iium.edu.my/id/eprint/1338

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