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A controlled experiment on productivity of pair programming gender combinations: Preliminary results

Abstract:

Context: Nowadays the pair programming (PP) approach is a well known practice that has been studied and applied in academia and industry, however the study of gender along with this practice is scarce. Objective: With the aim of approaching the study of gender in PP we conducted an empirical study. Method: We run a controlled experiment in an academic setting to assess the productivity (lines of code per hour) produced by different gender pair configurations (Female-Female, Female-Male and Male-Male). Results: Our results suggest similar productivity rates for the three gender pair combinations. The programming assignments have a significant impact on the productivity. Finally, we observed greater variability of productivity rates with mixed gender pairs (F-M). Conclusions: The experiment reported here can serve as reference for studying further aspects related to gender and pair programming.