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出现短缺，这导致许多大学对计算机科学课程的兴趣日益浓厚。然而，通常计算机科学专业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。不断增长的入学人数只会加剧这些课程固有的挑战，这些课程的保留率通常很低，在女学生中尤其不受欢迎。提高参与度和留存率的一种很有前景的技术是允许学生结对完成编程任务，即结对编程。结对编程本身并不是一个新概念，但是对学生学习结果的定量测量却很少。这个奖项的意义在于对结对编程在计算机科学入门课程中的有效性进行了一次集群随机对照试验。这个项目将考虑男女学生在不同的计算机入门课程中对2000名本科生的不同影响。感兴趣的结果包括编程技能水平、对计算的态度、课程损耗率、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。该项目调查将研究结对编程对学生短期和长期编程技能、计算机态度、学术成就和计算机科学持久性的影响，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.