Factors Affecting Students’ Performance in Distributed Pair Programming

Pair Programming has been shown to increase productivity and code quality not only in professional software development but also in the context of programming education. The provision of broadband Internet access gave rise to Distributed Pair Programming (DPP) enabling two programmers to collaborate remotely. To gain insight into the benefits of DPP, we performed an empirical study on an object-oriented programming course where 62 students carried out assignments through a DPP platform. The goal of the study is to investigate, in the context of DPP, whether prior programming skills (assessed at the level of student, his or her partner and pair) and pair compatibility are related to student performance. To further examine the effect of DPP on learning outcomes, we have studied whether a pair’s performance on DPP assignments is related to the students’ grade. The findings indicate that the student’s actual skill and the pair’s actual skill affect his or her performance in an object-oriented programming course. The results also suggested that there is no association between pair compatibility and his or her own performance. Finally, pair performance on DPP assignments is related to the individual student performance in the final exams. Such evidence can be used to guide instructors when planning DPP assignments and especially when forming student pairs.

Mismatched partners that achieve postpairing behavioral similarity improve their reproductive success

Behavioral similarity between partners is likely to promote within-pair compatibility and to result in better reproductive success. Therefore, individuals are expected to choose a partner that is alike in behavioral type. However, mate searching is very costly and does not guarantee finding a matching partner. If mismatched individuals pair, they may benefit from increasing their similarity after pairing. We show in a monogamous fish species—the convict cichlid—that the behavioral similarity between mismatched partners can increase after pairing. This increase resulted from asymmetrical adjustment because only the reactive individual became more alike its proactive partner, whereas the latter did not change its behavior. The mismatched pairs that increased their similarity not only improved their reproductive success but also raised it up to the level of matched pairs. While most studies assume that assortative mating results from mate choice, our study suggests that postpairing adjustment could be an alternative explanation for the high behavioral similarity between partners observed in the field. It also explains why interindividual behavioral differences can be maintained within a given population.