Pair programming in inducing knowledge sharing

The Pair programming as a part of the Agile software development has been gaining acceptance among practitioners and software development community.This successful leads a wide use of pair programming in educational setting as pedagogy in programming course.Pair programming can foster knowledge sharing among students.Many studies have been done with pair programming in education however most of them do not highlight internalized knowledge particularly tacit knowledge from knowledge sharing processes between students who act as driver and navigator in pair programming practice.Thus, this paper will discuss knowledge internalization based on the knowledge sharing activities in pair programming practices by employing the process of Socialization, Externalization, Combination and Internalization (SECI).The sample of the study consisted of 60 students who were actively engaged in pair programming practices.The factors investigated were types of internalized tacit knowledge in the form of learning, thinking and decision making skills among the students. Online questionnaires were adapted from SECI model into educational context.T Test technique was used to analyze the data.This study is expected to contribute a better understanding of important knowledge sharing activities to construct student’s skills during Internalization process through pair programming.This study’s result will be considered for future rigorous theoretical framework for constructing tacit knowledge among the students in pair programming environment

Investigating the Use of Pair Programming for Teaching Data Structures and Algorithms

Incoming university students who have not previously studied computer programming often find it a challenging subject, leading to high failure rates (Williams & Upchurch, 2001). As a result, enrolment in computer science courses is declining (Carver et al., 2007), with the participation of female students being particularly affected (Werner, Hanks & McDowell, 2004). Research has suggested that the lack of a formalized structure for collaborative learning may be one of the factors responsible for students’ negative impressions of computer science (Werner et al., 2004). In this study we investigated whether the use of pair programming in labs would facilitate peer learning and enhance students’ confidence in their programming ability. The hypothesis motivating this intervention was that the more experienced programmers would transmit some of their knowledge to the weaker students and that the class as a whole would benefit from having the support of a partner to identify problem solving strategies and to resolve coding bugs. Results showed that the intervention was generally well received, although the weaker programmers were more positive about it than the stronger ones. Students that reported learning from pair programming were less likely to enjoy programming (r = -.496), less likely to enjoy labs (r = -.502), more likely to struggle with understanding lab material (r = .561) and more likely to report a lack of confidence in programming (r = -.415). Although there was no significant increase in final exam grades for male students, there was a significant 9.7% increase for female students. The most frequently reported positive feature of pair programming was that it allowed students to meet more people in the class

Improving Learning of Programming Through E-Learning by Using Asynchronous Virtual Pair Programming

The problem of learning programming subjects, especially through distance learning and E-Learning, has been widely reported in literatures. Many attempts have been made to solve these problems. This has led to many new approaches in the techniques of learning of programming. One of the approaches that have been proposed is the use of virtual pair programming (VPP). Most of the studies about VPP in distance learning or e-learning environment focus on the use of the synchronous mode of collaboration between learners. Not much research have been done about asynchronous VPP. This paper describes how we have implemented VPP and a research that has been carried out to study the effectiveness of asynchronous VPP for learning of programming. In particular, this research study the effectiveness of asynchronous VPP in the learning of object-oriented programming among students at Open University Malaysia (OUM). The result of the research has shown that most of the learners have given positive feedback, indicating that they are happy with the use of asynchronous VPP. At the same time, learners did recommend some extra features that could be added in making asynchronous VPP more enjoyable. (Authors' abstract

Enhancing student's interest and achievement in programming 1 subject through pair programming

Purpose - Fear of programming subject is very common among Bachelor of Science in Information Technology novice students, since it is one of the most difficult subjects taken by them. Similarly, the lecturers face high challenges in delivering this subject.The students’ interest need to be gained so that they will practice programming without giving up.Additionally, the lecturers face high failure rates for this subject. By tradition, lecturers prefer to teach this subject through lecture and lab exercises (Maguire, Maguire, Hyland, & Marshall, 2014).However, in today’s learning environment and required skills for the 21st century, this approach is no longer suitable. Collaborative learning has been widely cited in literature as an approach that can provide benefits to the first year programming students (Maguire et al., 2014; Teague & Roe, 2009). Therefore, this study adapted pair programming technique to enable collaborative learning and promote deep learning in programming class. Pair programming is implemented by having two students working in pairs to solve a problem using one workstation.One of the students become the driver, who controls the input device and type the code.Meanwhile, another student becomes the navigator who is responsible to review the typed code and think for alternative solutions. Both will change their roles frequently (McDowell, Werner, Bullock & Fernald, 2006). Researches has shown that this technique has been applied successfully for programming courses (e.g. Salleh, Mendes, & Grundy, 2011; McDowell, Hanks & Werner, 2003).Similarly, result from the survey and focus group discussion conducted in this study indicates that the pair programming technique is able to increase students’ interest in Programming 1 subject.Also, the examination results of the repeaters increased as compared to the previous semester Methodology - During the semester, the pair programming technique was implemented in the Programming 1 class. To gather students’ feedback, an online survey and focus group discussion were implemented. The instrument for online survey was developed by referring to the existing studies, which contains three sections. Generally, 7-point semantic differential scale ranging from Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree was used in most of the questions (Zikmund, Babin, Carr & Griffin, 2010). Furthermore, the focus group (Martakis & Daneva, 2013) discussion was conducted by selecting seven students. Their opinion were gathered in more detail through the discussion. Finally, the examination results of the repeaters of the subjects are compared to observe their improvements.Findings - Thirty five (35) students were involved with the online survey, whereby majority of them were the repeaters of the subject (74%).Most of them stated that their previous lecturer used traditional approach in programming class (68%). Based on the outcomes of online survey and focus group discussion, pair programming is found to have a lot of benefits to the students.They highlighted that this technique is able to enhance their communication skill and helped them to produce better quality of code. On top of that, they agree that this technique helped them in getting solutions correctly and faster by following the proper steps. It increased their interest in programming and enable them to complete java programs more precisely. Besides that, other stated benefits are enhancement in critical thinking and communication skills, teamwork, problem solving, programming skills and improve their confidence. Enhancing their interest is very critical because when they have interest, then only they will do their best to understand the subject and try to learn more deeply. Otherwise, they will not put full effort for the subject. Additionally, by working in teams, they are able to exchange knowledge as well as improve the quality of code and design. Nevertheless, the students emphasized that to implement pair programming successfully, few important factors need to be considered. Among them are the programming ability and similar motivation among the pairs and their compatibility.This is supported by an existing study (Keefe et al.,2006).Furthermore, outcome from the pair programming technique implementation can be seen from the students’ achievements. The examination results of the repeaters are examined to understand their improvement. Majority of them improved their grades as compared to the previous semester.Four students achieved A or A-. Only few remained with the same grade or lower. This shows that when their interest can be gained, they are able to achieve better results

Paired Programming in a Clayton’s Capstone Project Course

In this paper the authors describe an Information Systems course where paired programming was trialled in the hope of improving both the assessment outcomes and the resourcing of an existing systems design course which incorporated a capstone project. The authors found that it did offer a significant improvement, but the improvements did not match the predicted outcomes, with a number of weaknesses to the model being highlighted. In particular, it was found that paired programming did not reduce teaching load when the group size was reduced

Enhancing Collaborative Learning Using Pair Programming: Who Benefits?

Incoming university students who have not previously studied computer programming often find it a challenging subject, leading to high failure rates. Research has suggested that the lack of a formalised structure for collaborative learning may be one of the factors responsible for students’ negative impressions of computer science. In this study we investigated whether the use of pair programming in practical laboratories would facilitate peer learning and enhance students’ confidence in their programming ability. Results showed that this intervention was generally well received, although the weaker programmers (as measured by prior exam grades) perceived it to be of more benefit than the stronger ones. Students who reported a lower initial level of enjoyment and confidence in programming were more likely to report learning from the paired intervention, though this did not necessarily lead to enhanced performance. The most frequently reported positive feature of pair programming was that it allowed students to meet more people in the class. Although there was no significant increase in final exam grades for male students, there was a significant increase for female students, suggesting this teaching strategy may have asymmetrical gender benefits

Increasing Consonance and Resonance in Agile Teaching Methodologies

In a cooperative environment technicalexcellence and high quality students’ artifacts is whatteachers strive to achieve while educating computerscience students and facing the challenges of this newcentury. When agile techniques and accelerators andinjected in the process in a cooperative environment theconsonance and resonance in groups increases. Thisspeeds up the learning process and the quality of thematerial produced by the students improves. Twoobservational studies at Kent State University at Starkand Ohio University are described in this paper. Thestudies observe the usefulness of using agile teachingtechniques and analyze the quality of deliverablesproduced. A post questionnaire gathered students’feedback. The observation shows that cooperativelearning produces better results than individuallearning however consonance and resonance must bereached before the speed is achieved