Pair programming improves student retention, confidence, and program quality

In recent years, the growth of extreme programming (XP) has brought considerable attention to collaborative programming. Developed over a fifteen year period by Kent Beck and his colleagues, Ron Jeffries and Ward Cunningham[1], XP is a computer software development approach that credits much of its success to the use of pair programming by all programmers, regardless of experience[2]. The pair programming dimension of XP requires that teams of two programmers work simultaneously on the same design, algorithm, code, or test. Sitting shoulder to shoulder at one computer, one member of the pair is the “designated driver, ” actively creating code and controlling the keyboard and mouse. The “non-driver ” constantly reviews the keyed data in order to identify tactical and strategic deficiencies, including erroneous syntax and logic, misspelling, and implementations that don't map to the design. After a designated period of time, the partners reverse roles. Code produced by only one partner is discarded, or reviewed collaboratively before it is integrated. Women and minorities continue to be underrepresented in computer science, and the number of women pursuing college majors in this area is declining. In 1984, 37 % of computer science bachelor's degrees were awarded to women and in 1998 that percentage was down to 26 % [3]. A number of variables have been proposed to account for this gender difference including: traditional socialization practices that reinforce math and science as male domains; lower confidence ratings and greater math anxiety among women; and women's tendency to take fewer advanced mathematics courses. Th