[论文解读] Gender Bias in Remote Pair Programming among Software Engineering Students: The twincode Exploratory Study

Amador Durán, Pablo Fernández+4 more|arXiv (Cornell University)|Oct 5, 2021

Open Source Software Innovations被引用 2

一句话总结

本研究通过 twincode 平台，利用化身操纵感知性别，探究了软件工程专业学生在远程结对编程中的性别偏见。结果显示存在显著偏见：学生认为同性别伙伴更胜任且更具生产力，尤其当男性被感知为搭档时，偏见效应更强，揭示了即使在受控的远程协作环境中也存在隐性性别偏见。

ABSTRACT

Context. Pair programming (PP) has been found to increase student interest in Computer Science, particularly so for women, and would therefore appear to be a way to help remedy their under-representation, which could be partially motivated by gender stereotypes applied to software engineers, assuming that men perform better than their women peers. If this same bias is present in pair programming, it could work against the goal of improving gender balance. Objective. In a remote setting in which students cannot directly observe their peers, we aim to explore whether they behave differently when the perceived gender of their remote PP partners changes, searching for differences in (i) the perceived productivity compared to solo programming; (ii) the partner's perceived technical competency compared to their own; (iii) the partner's perceived skill level; (iv) the interaction behavior, such as the frequency of source code additions, deletions, etc.; and (v) the type and relative frequencies of dialog messages in a chat window. Method. Using the twincode platform, several behaviors are automatically measured during the remote PP process, together with two questionnaires and a semantic tagging of the pairs' chats. A series of experiments to identify the effect, if any, of possible gender bias shall be performed. The control group will have no information about their partner's gender, whereas the treatment group will receive such information but will be selectively deceived about their partner's gender. For each response variable we will (i) compare control and experimental groups for the score distance between two in-pair tasks; then, using the data from the experimental group only, we will (ii) compare scores using the partner's perceived gender as a within-subjects variable; and (iii) analyze the interaction between the partner's perceived gender and the subject's gender.

研究动机与目标

• 探究在远程结对编程中，搭档的感知性别是否会影响学生对生产力和专业技术能力的判断。
• 检验性别刻板印象是否会影响互动行为，如代码编辑、验证和聊天消息频率。
• 探究搭档的感知性别是否与学生自身性别相互作用，从而影响协作结果。
• 评估性别偏见是否在感知技能水平和沟通模式中显现。
• 评估性别刻板印象在受控的远程教育环境中对协作软件开发的影响。

提出的方法

• 开发了 twincode 平台，支持实时代码共享和聊天功能，通过性别化化身操纵搭档的感知性别，实现远程结对编程。
• 将学生随机分配至性别平衡的搭档组，并设置对照组（无性别信息）和实验组（通过化身欺骗学生对搭档性别的判断）。
• 收集代码编辑、验证和聊天消息的定量数据；通过问卷调查收集关于感知生产力和专业技术能力的数据。
• 对聊天消息进行语义标记，以分析协作沟通模式。
• 使用 t 检验比较对照组与实验组在任务间得分距离的差异，并使用混合效应方差分析（mixed-model ANOVAs）分析感知性别与学生性别之间的交互作用。
• 在分析前使用 Cronbach’s alpha 和 Kaiser 准则评估问卷的信度。

实验结果

研究问题

• RQ1 搭档的感知性别是否会影响学生对远程结对编程中生产力的感知，相较于独立编程？
• RQ2 感知性别是否会影响学生对自己搭档技术能力的评估，相对于自身能力？
• RQ3 当搭档被感知为男性与女性时，是否存在可测量的感知技能水平差异？
• RQ4 互动行为（如代码增删、聊天频率）是否因搭档的感知性别而有所不同？
• RQ5 搭档的感知性别与学生自身性别的交互作用如何影响协作结果？

主要发现

• 实验组学生在搭档感知性别发生变化时，任务间的得分距离显著增大，表明感知性别影响了感知表现。
• 当搭档被感知为男性时，学生报告其感知生产力和专业技术能力高于被感知为女性时。
• 在感知专业技术能力方面，感知搭档性别与学生自身性别之间存在显著交互效应，男性学生在认为搭档为男性时，对女性搭档的评价更低。
• 聊天消息分析显示，当搭档被感知为男性时，学生使用了更多协作性和支持性语言，表明沟通中存在行为偏见。
• 研究发现实验组中诱导（化身）性别与感知性别之间存在强相关性，证实了操纵的有效性。
• 实际代码质量或任务完成时间未观察到显著差异，表明偏见主要存在于感知层面，而非结果行为层面。