How Pre-class Programming Experience Influences Students' Contribution to Their Team Project: A Statistical Study

Group or team projects are an essential component of the software engineering curriculum. Earlier studies have explored how prior programming experience influences students' team project performance and overall class performance in software engineering. However, few studies address the impact of prior programming experience on students' contributions to team projects. Previous work has varied in its definitions of prior programming experience or skill, leading to inconsistent findings. In this study, we collected pre-class GitHub contribution metrics from 237 students (forming 79 teams of three) across two academic years to measure their prior programming experience and skills. We also mined students' project repositories' git logs to collect individual student contributions. A central question revolved around whether students with more substantial prior programming experience were indeed more active contributors to their project teams. Interestingly, our data indicated a positive correlation between prior programming experience and contributions to team projects. We further delved into team dynamics. Specifically, we questioned if teams made up of members with comparable skill levels exhibited a more even distribution of contributions. Contrary to expectations, our findings revealed no association between these two variables. Moreover, we investigated the team configurations that might encourage the rise of "free riders"-students who contributed only minimally. This paper seeks to augment the body of research on computing education and assist educators in understanding how prior programming experience impacts students' contributions in team projects.