Work-in-Progress: Analysis of the use of Mentoring with Online Mob Programming

Extreme programming (XP) approaches such as pair and mob programming (PP and MP, respectively) have been introduced to the educational sector. However, higher education curricula have started implementing online courses as a method for teaching programming, which poses challenges when conducting XP. Because social factors are vital to learning, we examine a project-based learning method using online MP that introduces a high level of communication. It also maintains the advantages of PP through the “driver” and “navigator” approach. However, there are multiple complications, including discomfort, slow code generation, and interpersonal issues, when using conventional MP. Accordingly, we introduce a mentoring approach to the MP setup and examine the differences compared to conventional MP sessions. We create and analyze co-occurrence networks of codes found via open coding. In this paper, we explain our method and show its advantages based on the results of our analysis.