Pyrus: A Collaborative Programming Game to Support Problem-Solving

While prior work has shown that pair programming is successful in helping students develop confidence and produce better programs, research in collaboration and computing education suggests that it could be designed more effectively as a pedagogical tool. In this paper we present Pyrus, a collaborative programming game that explicitly scaffolds for behaviors linked to developing programming problem-solving skills. We evaluated Pyrus by comparing the amount of planning and verbal explanation demonstrated by pairs of programmers who worked on programming challenges in Pyrus and traditional pair programming. Our results suggest that Pyrus may more reliably support planning than traditional pair programming.