Comparing Test-Driven Development and Pair Programming to Improve the Learning of Programming Languages

This article explores student perceptions of the impact that test-driven development (TDD) and pair programming has on their ability to learn programming. In particular, we examine how test-driven development compares to pair programming in student’s perceptions. The basis of the study is a survey of students who have completed two programming courses that use the C# programming language and use both pair programming and test- driven development techniques to support learning of object-oriented programming. The results indicate that both pair programming and TDD are considered helpful by students but TDD is seen as the more valuable practice

Teaching User Interface Design: An Important Addition to the Information Systems Curriculum

Information Systems programs have focused on educating future developers in analysis, design and programming. However, in most of these programs, design is overshadowed by the programming and analysis aspects of the curriculum. The interface is specified by the instructor to be implemented by the students, with little attention to how that interface should work for the users. The result is programmers that develop systems, which users find difficult to use to perform their jobs. Poor user interface design has a significant impact on user productivity and error rates, and an increased need for user support. In this paper, we (1) examine problems caused by poor interface design, (2) describe characteristics of good design, (3) describe a course on interface design, and (4) describe the results of teaching the proposed course

GDSS and idea generation: A theoretical examination of technology supported group creativity

While the importance of creativity and innovation in organizations continues to grow, many organizations rely on questionable mechanisms such as group brainstorming and other such techniques to facilitate creativity. Group decision support systems (GDSS) promise to provide an effective means of enhancing group creativity. However, much of the research on GDSS focuses on group processes. This paper takes the position that the individual is the primary determinant of group creativity and develops a model of the individual process of idea generation. This model is applied to GDSS to examine the implications of this perspective on group creativity output

Wiki or Word? Evaluating Tools for Collaborative Writing and Editing

Businesses and other organizations are relying increasingly on virtual teams to perform a range of business activities. A key challenge in utilizing virtual teams is to support collaboration among team members who are separated by distance and/or time. In this paper we use a research model based on a combination of the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and the Task Technology Fit (TTF) model to examine two approaches to supporting students in collaboratively creating and editing a report for an introductory course in information systems. In our study, one group of students used MS Word with Track Changes turned on combined with emailing the document among students. A second group was provided access to a wiki where they created the report. Results show that students found the Word and email combination more useful and easier to use than the wiki environment in completing the project. Further, there was no perceived difference in the effort of collaboration between the two methods. This study raises questions about the widely held belief that web-based collaboration platforms are superior to emailing documents among collaborators

The Process of Software Maintenance:A Comparison of OOP and 3GL

This paper describes an on-going field study to examine the differences and similarities of software maintenance in the Object Oriented and conventional 3GL programming environments. We expect our results will show that the maintenance process will differ between environments in that programmers working in Object Oriented environments may need to spend more time understanding and coordinating their changes and less time making the change