It\'s Never Too Early: Pair Programming in CS1

Wood, K., Parsons, D., Gasson, J. and Haden, P.

This paper describes the use of the Pair Programming software development methodology in the earliest weeks of a first programming course. Based on a broad, subjective assessment of �programming confidence�, instructors placed students in level-matched pairs for a portion of their programming exercises. Students who began at the lowest levels of confidence showed significantly better exercise completion rates when paired than when working individually. Student response to the Pair Programming technique was uniformly positive, and teaching staff report pedagogical, mechanical and social benefits from the practice. These data indicate that successful programming pairs can be constructed based on tutors� subjective judgements of student performance very early in CS1, before exam scores or code quality assessments are available. Thus Pair Programming can be an effective classroom intervention even with extreme novices

Cite as: Wood, K., Parsons, D., Gasson, J. and Haden, P. (2013). It\'s Never Too Early: Pair Programming in CS1. In Proc. Fifteenth Australasian Computing Education Conference (ACE 2013) Adelaide, Australia. CRPIT, 136. Angela Carbone and Jacqueline Whalley Eds., ACS. 13-21

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