Towards increasing the compatibility of student pair programmers

As pair programming is used widely in software engineering education, instructors may wish to proactively form pairs to increase the likelihood of compatible pairs. A study involving 361 software engineering students was carried out at North Carolina State University to understand and predict pair compatibility. We have found that students are compatible with partners whom they perceive of similar skill, although instructors cannot proactively manage this perception. Pairing of two minority students is more likely and mixed gender pairs are less likely to be compatible. Additionally, pairing of students with similar actual skill level as measured by midterm grades in class, GPA, and SAT/GRE scores also likely results in compatible pairs. Our research addresses the following challenges faced by instructors in software engineering: 1) organizational concern in pairing of students; 2) increasing the retention rates of female and minority students in classes; and 3) proactively forming mutually-compatible pairs.