Code warriors and code-a-phobes: a study in attitude and pair programming
SIGCSE '03 Proceedings of the 34th SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education
Perceptions of Agile Practices: A Student Survey
Proceedings of the Second XP Universe and First Agile Universe Conference on Extreme Programming and Agile Methods - XP/Agile Universe 2002
The impact of pair programming on student performance, perception and persistence
Proceedings of the 25th International Conference on Software Engineering
Coupling pair programming and writing: learning about students' perceptions and processes
Proceedings of the 35th SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education
On understanding compatibility of student pair programmers
Proceedings of the 35th SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education
Program quality with pair programming in CS1
Proceedings of the 9th annual SIGCSE conference on Innovation and technology in computer science education
Pair-programming helps female computer science students
Journal on Educational Resources in Computing (JERIC) - Special Issue on Gender-Balancing Computing Education
Empirical studies of distributed pair programming
Empirical studies of distributed pair programming
Pair programming improves student retention, confidence, and program quality
Communications of the ACM - Music information retrieval
Novice software developers, all over again
ICER '08 Proceedings of the Fourth international Workshop on Computing Education Research
Engaging students in programming
Proceedings of the Twelfth Australasian Conference on Computing Education - Volume 103
A people-first approach to programming
ACE '09 Proceedings of the Eleventh Australasian Conference on Computing Education - Volume 95
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Pair programming, as part of the Agile Development process, has noted benefits in professional software development scenarios. These successes have led to a rise in use of pair programming in educational settings, particularly in CS1. Specifically [6] has shown that students using pair programming in CS1 do better in a CS2 class (with solo programming) than students who don't pair in CS1. This paper seeks to address a similar question, but from a qualitative, student-focused approach. How do students define, experience and value the pair programming experience? How do they experience and value it compared to solo programming? Does pairing in CS1 impact their confidence in their abilities. We report on semi-structured interviews with eleven subjects from two institutions where pair programming was used in CS1 and solo programming was used in the next course. Many of the responses met our expectations: students get stuck less and explore more ideas while pairing, and believe that pair programming helped them in CS1. Other responses were more surprising. Students reported that when solo programming that they were more confident and understood their programs better. Many students also said that they started work on their assignments earlier when soloing. Students also continue to use other students as resources even when working "solo".