Enhancing Software Development in the MIS Curriculum using Pair Programming

Management Information Systems (MIS) majors often must perfect their programming skills with one course which can be a daunting task. In an effort to enhance the software development abilities of MIS majors a pair programming lab experiment was conducted in an introductory software development course to determine if that technique would produce benefits for the MIS curriculum. Pair programming experiments are often performed with Computer Science majors but rarely with MIS majors. The researchers’ observations as well as participant’s responses to a survey questionnaire were analyzed after the experiment. The results indicated that pair programming may be beneficial as a pedagogical tool to a MIS students’ ability to create programs using high-level concepts. Additionally, researcher observations revealed pairs worked collaboratively to produce the program while actively communicating and enjoying the process.