January 2012 Volume 15 Number 1 - Educational Technology ...

Summary of Collaboration Styles and Programming Processes
Even though the three parent-child pairs exhibited different patterns of collaboration, the following characteristics
can be induced concerning how the three pairs collaborated and proceeded in their problem-solving processes.
Parents and children partnered up as pair programmers naturally.
It is interesting to notice that parent-child collaboration in programming naturally fell into a special form of pair
programming, a widely adopted technique in the software engineering world (McDowell, Bullock, Fernald, &
Werner, 2002; Williams & Kessler, 2000). When pair programming, two partners sit shoulder to shoulder at one
computer; one member is the designated “driver” who controls the keyboard and mouse while actively creating
code; the other member is the “reviewer” who constantly reviews the keyed data in order to identify possible
errors in the code. With the three parent-child pairs in our study, the children always assumed the role of driver,
while their parents were always the reviewer. (This is why we called it a “special form,” because in real pair
programming the two partners are required to alternate between the roles of driver and reviewer.) In today’s
society, children are often more skilled at computer tasks than their parents due to frequent use of technology.
Therefore, parents may not get the hang of MWSLogo commands as quickly as their children. However, parents
usually are better equipped with problem-solving skills and geometric knowledge, which enables them to be
more qualified as reviewers. Furthermore, it is all too natural for parents to willingly relinquish use of computers
to their children so their children can have more chances to practice.
Analysis and design were emphasized.
According to our teaching experience, elementary school students tend to write programs by trial and error.
Most of them rush to the computer to key in commands before they really know how to solve a problem. When a
program does not produce results as expected, “tinkering” (Perkins & Martin, 1986) is the typical approach to
debugging. Consequently, the students may not understand how a program works even if the result turns out to
be correct. In contrast, the three children in this study were encouraged (or, rather, required) by their parents to
analyze the task and talk about how they intended to solve the problem before they started to key in the code.
When errors occurred in a program, the parents usually guided their children through the analysis and design
steps again and helped them to identify the mistakes. The proper emphasis on analysis and design led children to
write programs in a more systematic and disciplined fashion.
Programs produced were more compact and well-structured.
As a result of the systematic and well-disciplined approach to programming, the programs produced by the three
children in this study were more compact and better structured, as compared with those usually generated by
children through trial and error when they program alone.
Reflection on the problem-solving processes was encouraged.
Researchers (e.g., Clements & Meredith, 1993) have pointed out that students do not automatically transfer
knowledge gained in one situation to another. Therefore, questions that cause students to reflect on what they are
doing are instrumental. Unfortunately reflection is usually the most neglected problem-solving step. Students
often cannot wait to move on to the next task once they see their programs produce something that looks correct.
With the three parent-child pairs in this study, however, it was observed that the parents always took care in
ensuring that their children really understood how a problem had been solved. They reviewed the solution with
their children and encouraged them to think up alternative solutions.
The children tended to be overcautious under parental supervision.
Under their parents’ supervision, Sean and Jade appeared to be overcautious in making each problem-solving
step for fear of making mistakes. For Sean, he might not even have the chance to make mistakes because his
mother would have stopped him from going in the wrong direction early on. This seems to be a negative aspect
of parent-child collaboration and should be avoided because it deprives the children of the opportunities to
explore and to learn from making errors.
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