A Two-year Evaluation of Distributed Pair Programming Assignments by Undergraduate Students

Περίληψη

Pair Programming (PP) has a long history both in software industry and education. More recently, specially designed environments have made possible the application of Distributed Pair Programming (DPP) as well. In our institution we have applied DPP in the context of an undergraduate Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) course for five years. Specifically, we have used the educational DPP system of SCEPPSys in the context of Java programming assignments. In this paper, we analyze students’ replies in a questionnaire filled in after the end of the course for two consecutive academic years. This study aims to investigate students’ experience and perceptions on DPP assignments. The following issues are investigated: overall experience on DPP, preference in working individually or collaboratively in programming assignments, selection criteria and satisfaction with partners, benefits and shortcomings of DPP assignments. The results are rather positive and give instructors some guidelines for the effective application of DPP.