Pair vs Solo Programming: Students’ Perceptions

In recent past the concept of pair programming has evolved as one of the important technique of coding. It is one of the most talked about aspects of XP. Pair programming is a methodology in which two people work together and periodically switch between the roles of driver and navigator. Instead of partitioning a task into a number of activities, where each member performs a different activity alone, in pair both partners perform each activity together. Pair programming concepts have been introduced in the classroom and students’ reaction to the same has been presented in this paper. Further, this paper presents the results of an experiment conducted to assess the pair programmers’ as well as individual programmers’ ability in terms of effort and efficiency. The study was conducted with two groups of students. Both the groups solved the lab assignments in pair as well as in solo programming technique. The two parameters were evaluated in this study one is the effort and the other is the efficiency. Effort was measured as number of hours spent per person and efficiency we have measured as number of test cases passed after completion of the assignments as well as number of failures per ten runs. The students were given a questionnaire after completion of the assignments and evaluation. Their responses were evaluated using factor analysis and performance of pair and solo programming technique were compared using paired sampled t-test. This paper presents the results of the factor analysis and t-test. The results show that pair programming technique has greater impact than solo programming in terms of effort and efficiency. Keyword -Pair programming, solo programming, effort, efficiency.