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Controlled experimentation on adaptations of pair programming

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Abstract

The use of agile methods is growing in industrial practice due to the documented benefits of increased software quality, shared programmer expertise, and user satisfaction. These methods include pair programming (two programmers working side-by-side producing the code) and test-driven approaches (test cases written first to prepare for coding). In practice, software development organizations adapt agile methods to their environment. The purpose of this research is to understand better the impacts of adapting these methods. We perform a set of controlled experiments to investigate how adaptations, or variations, to the pair programming method impact programming performance and user satisfaction. We find that method variations do influence programming results. In particular, better performance and satisfaction outcomes are achieved when the pair programming is performed in face-to-face versus virtual settings, in combination with the test-driven approach, and with more experienced programmers. We also find that limiting the extent of collaboration can be effective, especially when programmers are more experienced. These experimental results provide a rigorous foundation for deciding how to adapt pair programming methods into specific project contexts.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Management Information Systems, College of Business Administration, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL, 32816, USA

    Madeline Ann Domino

  2. Information Systems and Decision Sciences, College of Business Administration, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL, 33620, USA

    Rosann Webb Collins & Alan R. Hevner

Authors
  1. Madeline Ann Domino
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  2. Rosann Webb Collins
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  3. Alan R. Hevner
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Alan R. Hevner.

Appendices

Appendix I: Experimental tasks

Experimental Task I—Discount Invoice Module

This module is part of the invoice processing program for a retailer. In this module, any discounts for the customer are computed. At this retailer, there are two ways to earn a discount:

  1. (1)

    total-purchase-amount-discount—if the total amount of purchases, pre-tax, is greater than an established amount; and

  2. (2)

    product-specific-discount—if the total number of purchases of designated products is greater than a second, set number of purchases. This second type of discount is given to encourage sales of certain products.

If the customer’s purchases earn both types of discounts, the second, product-specific discount is computed first. If the second discount reduces the sale to below the set amount for the first discount, the customer does not get the first, total purchase amount discount.

These values are passed to this module:

  • Total1  = pre-tax total of the prices of one or more items purchased on the invoice

  • Total_num = total number of purchases of designated products

  • Total2 = total purchase price of purchases of designated products

  • Discount_level1 = established amount of total purchases required to earn a discount

  • Discount_level2 = established number of purchases of designated products required to earn a discount

  • Discount1 = percentage discount for total-purchase-amount-discounts

  • Discount2 = percentage discount for product-specific-discounts

You can assume that the values passed to this module do not include negative numbers or zeros, since the input is checked in the other module.

This module should return these values:

  • Total_discount1 = amount of total-purchase-amount-discount

  • New_total1 = new total purchase amount (that reflects the discount(s))

  • Total_discount2 = amount of product-specific-amount discounts

  1. a.

    Prepare a test data set with at least 10 cases for this module.

  2. b.

    Write the pseudocode for this module and check it for accuracy.

Experimental Task II—Sales Report Module

This module produces a sales report for a car dealership. For each car sold, the following information is stored in the SALES file, which is sorted by date and time of a car sale.

   
Full size table

The sales manager wants a report on the first day of each month that lists total sales and commissions for each salesperson. There should be just one line for each salesperson, listing name, average commission, total sales for the previous month, and total commission amount. At the end of this list there should be a grand total of all sales and all commissions earned.

  1. a.

    For this module, the test data should be a SALES file with many records. Describe the test records you would put into the SALES file in terms of the number of records and their content.

  2. b.

    Write the pseudocode for this module and check it for accuracy.

Appendix II: Scoring templates

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Domino, M.A., Collins, R.W. & Hevner, A.R. Controlled experimentation on adaptations of pair programming. Inf Technol Manage 8, 297–312 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10799-007-0016-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10799-007-0016-8

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