Examining pair programming as a learning practice at KTH : An exploratory and qualitative study on benefits and drawbacks of pair programming perceived by students at KTH

Abstract: Pair programming is an agile software development practice that can be used in university student's education when learning programming. Previous research on students at universities has shown that there exist different perceived benefits and drawbacks on the practice’s contribution to learning. However, these research are few and no similar studies have been conducted at KTH. A research gap has therefore emerged, which this thesis intends to fill and potentially lead to the subject being more relevant to, for example, Swedish universities. This creates the problem question: “How do students at KTH perceive the benefits and drawbacks of pair programming from a learning perspective, and how do these compare to previous studies?”. The purpose of the thesis is to explore the students' perceived benefits and drawbacks of pair programming at KTH from a learning perspective. The thesis goal is to expand the study on students' perceived benefits and drawbacks of pair programming from a learning perspective, as well as contribute to the knowledge of pair programming. The research methods chosen for the thesis are previous literature studies and qualitative in-depth interviews with eight students at KTH. The results are presented as summerazitations and tables of collected data on KTH students' perceptions on the benefits and drawbacks of pair programming from a learning perspective. The main benefits and their circumstances identified were better perspective, qualitative code and faster progress. Drawbacks and their circumstances on the other hand, were identified as various levels of experience, difference in personal preference, different time schedules and difficulties in alternating roles and changing partners. These results indicate that pair programming contributes much when learning programming, but that there also exist perceived drawbacks by KTH students.