Exploring Lag Times in a Pair Tracing and Debugging Eye-Tracking Experiment

Abstract

This paper investigated the leader/follower patterns that possibly occurred in a remote pair programming eye-tracking experiment. We intended to build the profile of the initiator and the follower and explore the lag times inherent to pairs categorized based on prior knowledge using the diagonal recurrence profile. Findings revealed that in a pair programming setup, the initiator was the low prior knowledge participant. We defined the “initiator” as the one who encountered a problem in the code first and hence initiated the contact to ask for help, and the “follower” was the one who responded to help. The characteristic lag times based on prior knowledge were 2.33 seconds for both high prior knowledge pairs, 1.96 seconds for both low prior knowledge pairs, and 1.51 seconds for mixed prior knowledge pairs.