Evaluating pair-programming for non-computer science major students

The ubiquitous nature of software has resulted in many non-computer-science (NCS) major students taking courses in computer programming. The appeal of learning computer programming for this cohort may be diminished, given that they do not usually have an initial desire to become expert programmers. This, coupled with the difficulty of learning computer programming, means that efforts to heighten their engagement with/learning of, programming skills are required. Paired programming is an approach that has been hypothesized as increasing computer science students' attendance and performance. The study presented here reports on a controlled study investigating the impact of a pair-programming approach to teaching computer programming to NCS majors. The results indicate that pair programming has a positive impact on student attendance, particularly for weaker students. While a comparison of the paired programming cohort and a traditional lab cohort is not statistically significant with respect to performance, there are definite trends which suggest that pair programming may increase the number of weaker students that succeed in the programming module. These trends are re-enforced by qualitative feedback from the participants.