Acceptance and Assessment in Student Pair-Programming: A Case Study

Abstract

This study analyzes pair programming's acceptance and assessment in the university setting considering participants' gender, previous programming ex-perience, and programming enjoyment. The sample included 80 students from three different sections enrolled in a basic programming course. We used a questionnaire to collect data after the pair programming practices. For data analysis, we used SPSS 24, and Mann-Whitney, Kruskal-Wallis, and Jonckheere-Terpstra statistical techniques. Descriptive and comparative re-sults showed a significant increasing monotonic trend in the acceptance of pair programming as students' preference toward programming increased (standardized statistic = 3.20, p = 0.00, Kendall's τb = 0.30, p = 0.001). Also, pair programming was positively accepted and assessed even by students who reported a low level of programming enjoyment. There were no other statistically significant results.