Abstract
Educators are faced with ever increasing challenges when teaching programming. The increase in the number of operating systems brings with it challenges for programmers because of the change in programming paradigms, programming languages and software suites that are dependent on most recent developments in technology and more so operating systems. The issue for educators maybe to move away from teacher centred teaching and learning to student centred learning. Pair programming is a technique that offers educators an opportunity to further enhance student centred learning. This study conducted an empirical study of “pair programming” in the teaching and learning of an introductory programming course in computer science with input from educators and learners. The purpose was to determine how a collaborative learning technique can be used as a pedagogic intervention for effective teaching and learning of a programming course. The study attempted to determine the impact of collaborative pair programming on students and whether Information Technology educators can use pair programming as a teaching strategy. There was a pre-test for students to secure data on how students attempted programming tasks. Thereafter the pair-programming technique was implemented and a post-test was administered to determine the effectiveness of the intervention strategy. The research findings indicated that the educators and learners had a positive attitude towards the use of pair programming to support teaching and learning and learners were convinced that they would become better programmers in the future. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n20p1077
Highlights
One of the ultimate outcomes of information technology (IT) education, is to ensure good pedagogical quality and gainful employment by the IT student in the software industry
Every day there are an infinite number of ideas and software projects that industry and academia can conjure up; there must be an association between what academia conjures up and what happens in the software industry
This study has focused on academia, i.e. secondary and tertiary institutions of learning; academics must always bear in mind that the ultimate client of programming is the software industry
Summary
One of the ultimate outcomes of information technology (IT) education, is to ensure good pedagogical quality and gainful employment by the IT student in the software industry. Software projects researched by Bryant, Romero, and du Boulay (2006) encouraged PP amongst software developers. Over the years debates have persisted over the correct approach to teach Computer Science programming and the programming languages that should be used. According to Roy and Haridi (2003), the most popular approach to teach programming is in a single paradigm embodied in a single language. Ismail, Ngah, and Umar (2010), maintain that an OO approach to programming is "not a good starting-point for introducing students to the basic concepts of programming" According to Roy and Haridi (2003), the most popular approach to teach programming is in a single paradigm embodied in a single language. Cooper, Dann and Pausch, (2003) advocate an objects-first approach, while Howe, Thornton, and Weide (2004) consider the object-oriented (OO) and the component-first approaches to be most influential. Govender (2006) indicated in her research that there “exists tension between procedural paradigm and OO paradigm”. Ismail, Ngah, and Umar (2010), maintain that an OO approach to programming is "not a good starting-point for introducing students to the basic concepts of programming"
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