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Problems encountered by novice pair programmers

Published: 09 January 2008 Publication History

Abstract

In a study of the types of problems encountered by students that led them to seek assistance, Robins et al. [2006] found that the most common problems were related to trivial mechanics. The students in this study worked by themselves on their programming exercises. This article discusses a replication of the Robins et al. study in which the subjects pair programmed. The types of problems encountered by the pairing students were similar to those of the solo students. The number of problems requiring assistance was much smaller for the pairing students, which suggests that they were able to resolve more problems on their own.

References

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Garner, S., Haden, P., and Robins, A. 2005. My program is correct but it doesn't run: a preliminary investigation of novice programmers' problems. In Proceedings of the 7th Australasian Conference on Computing Education (ACE'05). 173--180.
[2]
Hanks, B., McDowell, C., Draper, D., and Krnjajic, M. 2004. Program quality with pair programming in cs1. In Proceedings of the 9th Annual SIGCSE Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education (ITiCSE'04). 176--180.
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Lister, R., Adams, E. S., Fitzgerald, S., Fone, W., Hamer, J., Lindholm,M., McCartney, R., Moström, J. E., Sanders, K., Seppälä, O., Simon, B., and Thomas, L. 2004. A multinational study of reading and tracing skills in novice programmers. In Working Group Reports from ITiCSE on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education (ITiCSE-WGR'04). 119--150.
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Lister, R., Berglund, A., Clear, T., Bergin, J., Garvin-Doxas, K., Hanks, B., Hitchner, L., Luxton-Reilly, A., Sanders, K., Schulte, C., and Whalley, J. L. 2006. Research perspectives on the objects-early debate. In Working Group Reports on ITiCSE on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education (ITiCSE-WGR'06). 146--165.
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Nagappan, N., Williams, L., Ferzli, M., Wiebe, E., Yang, K., Miller, C., and Balik, S. 2003. Improving the CS1 experience with pair programming. In Proceedings of the 34th SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE'03). 359--362.
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Robins, A., Haden, P., and Garner, S. 2006. Problem distributions in a CS1 course. In Proceedings of the 8th Australian Conference on Computing Education (ACE'06). 165--173.
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Soloway, E. and Spohrer, J. C., eds. 1989. Studying the Novice Programmer. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., Hillsdale, N.J.

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  • (2020)Research in Computer Science EducationGuide to Teaching Computer Science10.1007/978-3-030-39360-1_7(119-142)Online publication date: 6-Aug-2020
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Published In

cover image Journal on Educational Resources in Computing
Journal on Educational Resources in Computing  Volume 7, Issue 4
January 2008
124 pages
ISSN:1531-4278
EISSN:1531-4278
DOI:10.1145/1316450
Issue’s Table of Contents
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 09 January 2008
Accepted: 01 October 2007
Received: 01 October 2007
Published in JERIC Volume 7, Issue 4

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Author Tags

  1. CS1
  2. Computer science education
  3. errors
  4. novice
  5. pair programming

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Cited By

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  • (2023)The ABC of Pair Programming: Gender-Dependent Attitude, Behavior and Code of Young LearnersProceedings of the 45th International Conference on Software Engineering: Software Engineering Education and Training10.1109/ICSE-SEET58685.2023.00018(115-127)Online publication date: 17-May-2023
  • (2023)Using Debugging as a Platform for Transdisciplinary LearningCognition and Instruction10.1080/07370008.2023.227009442:1(124-158)Online publication date: 9-Nov-2023
  • (2020)Research in Computer Science EducationGuide to Teaching Computer Science10.1007/978-3-030-39360-1_7(119-142)Online publication date: 6-Aug-2020
  • (2018)Yeni Piagetçi Kurama Göre Bilişim Teknolojileri Öğretmen Adaylarının Soyutlama Düzeylerinin ve Programlama Davranışlarının BelirlenmesiAnkara Universitesi Egitim Bilimleri Fakultesi Dergisi10.30964/auebfd.404978(1-26)Online publication date: 13-Mar-2018
  • (2018)Introductory programming: a systematic literature reviewProceedings Companion of the 23rd Annual ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education10.1145/3293881.3295779(55-106)Online publication date: 2-Jul-2018
  • (2016)Empirical Confirmation of Pair Programming Effectiveness in the Teaching of Computer Programming2016 International Conference on Computational Science and Computational Intelligence (CSCI)10.1109/CSCI.2016.0060(276-281)Online publication date: Dec-2016
  • (2015)Research in Computer Science Education 4Guide to Teaching Computer Science10.1007/978-1-4471-6630-6_4(55-73)Online publication date: 8-Jan-2015
  • (2011)The Case for Pair Programming in the Computer Science ClassroomACM Transactions on Computing Education10.1145/1921607.192160911:1(1-21)Online publication date: 1-Feb-2011
  • (2011)Pair programming in education: a literature reviewComputer Science Education10.1080/08993408.2011.57980821:2(135-173)Online publication date: 17-Jun-2011
  • (2011)Is pair programming more effective than other forms of collaboration for young students?Computer Science Education10.1080/08993408.2011.57980521:2(105-134)Online publication date: 17-Jun-2011
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