Can Pair Programming Reduce the Gender Gap in Computing? A Study of Middle School Students Learning to Program

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Learning to program is the entry point in a computing pathway, but large numbers of students, particularly women and girls, drop out of introductory programming courses at the college and K-12 level. To attract and retain girls and women, there is a need for pedagogical approaches that foster persistence, creativity, fearlessness, computational ways of thinking and problem solving, or "Intrepid Exploration," a term coined by this team of researchers. The proposed study focuses on pair programming in middle school--a gender-equitable practice where two people collaborate on one computer. Research suggests that pair programming benefits both women and men, and that benefits depend on partner compatibility. However, most pair-programming research has been done with university students or professional programmers, and focuses on the efficiency or correctness of a problem solution, rather than on the nature of the collaboration or the problem-solving process. The goal of this study is to understand the conditions under which pair programming can foster the kind of thinking and problem solving that will prepare female middle school students to pursue and persist in computing fields.This research will be a design experiment with 80 girls and boys from a range of socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds who are enrolled in game programming classes. The classes will be taught using a pair programming toolkit developed over ten years by a collaboration of researchers and teachers. In-depth and multi-method data collection and analysis will be used to describe gender-based differences in student interactions, and to study how interactions evolve over time, and the individual, relational, and institutional factors that play a role in the nature of those interactions. Data will be collected on the implementation process, as well as on individual learning, interpersonal dynamics, sequences of interactions, and the context in which learning takes place. The mixed methods analysis process will focus on the integration of data from multiple sources following criteria to ensure the design quality and interpretive rigor of the approach. The project will result in a descriptive model of what pair programming in middle school looks like, for whom it fosters intrepid exploration, and the interactional processes that are associated with the development of intrepid exploration.The results will advance knowledge and have clear implications for educational practice. They will contribute to our understanding of the conditions under which collaboration in middle school can address the gender gap in computing, as well as whether there are gender-based and cultural differences in interactions, and if they affect the kinds of thinking and problem solving needed to succeed in computing. The research will also be the first to investigate how to support and measure the development of intrepid exploration in efforts to increase gender diversity in computing. The findings will also be responsive to the practical concerns of teachers, such as how to foster effective pair programming, how to assess individual learning, and how to provide a tailored and gender-equitable pair programming experience.