What happens during Pair Programming

Abstract. Successful qualitative analysis of pair programming requires a terminology (such as a set of concepts or a coding scheme) that represents the observed phenomena on an appropriate abstraction level. On the one hand, different analysis goals will require different specialized termi-nology, on the other hand it would be helpful, if different studies used common terminology so that comparing and combining their results will be easier. We suggest to define terminology in layers: a PP foundation layer that is common to all analyses and more specialized study-specific layers on top. The present article presents this foundation layer which we have derived from audio/video analysis of pair programming sessions in Grounded Theory investigation style. Its concepts describe the individual observable human-to-human utterances and human-to-computer activities that occur during pair programming.