Pair Programming as a Pedagogical Approach for Promoting Success and Equity in Computer Science Coursework

结对编程作为促进计算机科学课程成功和公平的教学方法

• 批准号: 1611908
• 负责人: Alberto Segre
• 金额: $ 29.99万
• 依托单位: University of Iowa
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2016-06-15 至 2020-05-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1611908&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Pair; Programming; Pedagogical; Approach; Promoting

Most economic forecasts foresee a shortage of qualified computer scientists and engineers by the year 2020, leading to growing interest in computer science courses at many universities. Yet the usual first course for computer science majors typically consists of learning to program, and necessarily involves at least several challenging programming assignments, which can lead to poor student engagement and eventual disenchantment. Growing enrollments only exacerbate the challenges inherent in these courses, which often have low retention rates and are particularly unpopular among female students. One promising technique to improve engagement and retention is to allow students to work on programming assignments in pairs, i.e., pair programming. Pair programming is not a new concept itself, but quantitative measures of the resulting student learning are few. The significance of this award is a cluster-randomized control trial on the effectiveness of pair programming in the introductory computer science curriculum.This project will consider differential effects for female and male students across different introductory computing courses using 2,000 undergraduates. Outcomes of interest include level of programming skill, attitudes toward computing, course attrition rates, course grades, selection of and performance in subsequent computational coursework, and changes in undergraduate major. The project investigation will study the effects of pair programming on student short-term and long-term programming skills, computing attitudes, academic achievement, and persistence in computer science, particularly paying attention to female students.

大多数经济预测预测，到2020年，合格的计算机科学家和工程师将出现短缺，导致许多大学对计算机科学课程的兴趣与日俱增。然而，对于计算机科学专业的学生来说，通常的第一门课程通常包括学习编程，而且必然会涉及至少几个具有挑战性的编程作业，这可能会导致学生参与度不高，最终导致幻想破灭。不断增加的入学人数只会加剧这些课程固有的挑战，这些课程的保留率往往很低，在女学生中尤其不受欢迎。提高参与度和记忆力的一个很有前途的技术是允许学生结对进行编程作业，即结对编程。结对编程本身并不是一个新概念，但对由此产生的学生学习的定量衡量却很少。这一奖项的意义在于对计算机科学入门课程中结对编程的有效性进行了一项整群随机对照试验。该项目将考虑男女学生在不同计算机入门课程中的差异效应，该课程使用了2000名本科生。感兴趣的结果包括编程技能水平、对计算的态度、课程流失率、课程成绩、后续计算课程的选择和表现，以及本科专业的变化。项目调查将研究结对编程对学生短期和长期编程技能、计算态度、学业成绩和对计算机科学的执着的影响，特别是对女学生的关注。