Using collaborative learning research to enhance pair programming pedagogy

Programming is a pillar of IT education; teaching programming is a major challenge of IT education. A significant amount of recent research has demonstrated the success of pair programming pedagogy in meeting this challenge. Pair programming is a key component of the Extreme Programming software development methodology. When used as pedagogy, pair programming is an instance of collaborative learning, a well-established technique for teaching complex, conceptual tasks. Research has documented the success of collaborative learning and has identified the critical attributes of successful collaborative learning approaches. This article uses a review of the research as a basis for recommended enhancements to ensure that pair programming pedagogy possesses the critical attributes of successful collaborative teaming approaches.