Qualitative Analysis of the Teacher and Student Roles in Pair Programming

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the roles of Teacher and Student in pair programming, identifying effective behaviors and anti-patterns to improve collaboration and learning in software development teams.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed framework of role facets and anti-patterns for Teacher and Student roles in pair programming, based on qualitative analysis.

Findings

Six facets of effective Teacher behavior identified

Two facets of effective Student behavior identified

Four harmful Teacher anti-patterns identified

Abstract

Background: Pair programming is a well-established and versatile agile practice. Previous research has found it to involve far more different roles than the well-known Driver and Observer/Navigator roles. Pair programming often involves heavy knowledge transfer from mainly one partner to the other. Objective: Understand how to fill the ensuing Teacher and Student roles well (positive behavioral patterns). Understand how they may break (anti-patterns). Method: Open coding and axial coding of 17 recorded pair programming sessions with 18 developers from 5 German software companies, plus interviews with 6 different developers from 4 other German companies. Results: We describe six facets of effective Teacher behavior (e.g. Prioritizing Knowledge Transfer) and two facets of effective Student behavior (e.g. Expressing Knowledge Wants). We describe four harmful would-be-Teacher behaviors (e.g. Pushing Unwanted Knowledge), and one harmful would-be-Student behavior (Failing to Provide a Back Channel). Conclusions: The role facets can serve as learning goals and to-do list for developers who want to develop strong pair programming skill. The anti-patterns can serve as warnings for one's own general behavior and as triggers for immediate meta-discussion if they occur within a pairing session.