Title: The impact of using pair programming: a case study

Authors: Mohammad Al-Ramahi; Iyad Alazzam; Izzat Alsmadi

Addresses: College of Business and Information Systems, Dakota State University, 820 North Washington Avenue, Madison, SD 57042, USA ' Faculty of Information Technology and Computer Sciences, Yarmouk University, P.O. Box 566, 21163, Irbid, Jordan ' Information Systems Department, College of Computer and Information Sciences, Prince Sultan University, P.O. Box 66833, Rafha Street, Riyadh 11586, Saudi Arabia

Abstract: Several studies tried to evaluate the impact of using pair programming in computer educational courses or in actual programming projects in the industry. We studied the effect of pair programming practice on the performance of students who do not like and face problems with understanding programming courses through conducting a case study of several programming tasks in third-level practical programming course using individual and pair programming options. We tried to evaluate using pairs of students where one has very good programming skills unlike the other pair who suffers problems in programming. We also conducted a comparison study with papers in the area of pair programming to compare the different approaches that are used in evaluating pair programming practices. In computer programming education, pair programming can be used as part of the education, helping students learn from each other especially those who do not like and face obstacles in learning programming.

Keywords: pair programming; computer education; programming projects; software development; case study; cooperation; cooperative learning.

DOI: 10.1504/IJTCS.2013.060633

International Journal of Teaching and Case Studies, 2013 Vol.4 No.4, pp.313 - 329

Received: 13 Nov 2013
Accepted: 19 Nov 2013
Published online: 28 Jun 2014 *

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