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

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短缺，导致许多大学对计算机科学课程的兴趣越来越大。然而，计算机科学专业通常的第一门课程通常包括学习编程，并且必然涉及至少几个具有挑战性的编程作业，这可能导致学生参与度低，最终失望。入学人数的增加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，尤其不受女生欢迎。提高参与度和保留率的一个有前途的技术是允许学生成对地完成编程作业，即，结对编程结对编程本身并不是一个新概念，但学生学习的量化措施很少。该奖项的意义在于对计算机科学入门课程中配对编程的有效性进行了一项群集随机对照试验。该项目将使用2，000名本科生来考虑不同入门计算课程对男女学生的不同影响。感兴趣的结果包括编程技能水平，对计算的态度，当然减员率，课程成绩，选择和性能在随后的计算课程，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、学业成绩和计算机科学坚持性的影响，特别关注女学生。

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.