Student attitudes toward pair programming

Abstract

Students in four introductory programming classes who participated in a pair programming study had very positive attitudes toward pair programming: they liked it, thought that it was fun, would like to do it again, and believed that they learned more because they paired. Although the students as a whole had positive attitudes, the results were not consistent between instructors; in particular, the students in one of the courses were significantly less positive about pair programming. The implications of instructor-based differences in attitude are discussed.This paper also examines the relationship between student confidence and attitudes toward pair programming. The most confident students liked pairing the most, while the least confident students liked it the least. This finding contradicts results that have been reported elsewhere.