Paper Info
Title
An Investigation of Conflicts Between Upper-Elementary Pair Programmers
Abstract
Extensive prior research suggests that pair programming holds many benefits for novices. Pair programming has been well studied at the undergraduate level, and recently, the CS education research community has started to realize that younger learners may also benefit from pair programming. However, an important factor in pair programming success for young learners is the ability to resolve conflicts during the process. Little is known about what types of conflicts occur while elementary students pair program or how those conflicts are, or are not, resolved. To investigate this phenomenon, we analyzed the videos of six pairs of students completing a programming activity. We found that conflicts evolve in four general stages, which may not all be present in each conflict: initiation, escalation, de-escalation, and conclusion. Some conflicts are resolved when the students come to an agreement, others end passively. The analysis revealed that the pairs' conflicts began around disagreements about code, who should have control of the keyboard and mouse, and other interpersonal events. This research indicates that conflicts are a significant concern for young students, and supporting young learners in developing improved collaboration skills is a key direction for CS education research.
Year
DOI
Venue
2020
10.1145/3287324.3293799
Proceedings of the 50th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education
Keywords
Field
DocType
collaboration, conflict, elementary school, pair programming
Pair programming,Interpersonal communication,Computer science,Knowledge management,Mathematics education,Phenomenon
Conference
ISBN
Citations 
PageRank 
978-1-4503-5890-3
0
0.34
References 
Authors
4
8
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Jennifer Tsan102.37
Jessica Vandenberg214.42
Xiaoting Fu300.68
Jamieka Wilkinson401.01
Danielle Boulden504.73
Kristy Elizabeth Boyer654064.01
Collin Lynch746058.33
Eric. N. Wiebe842743.55