Do Preparatory Programming Lab Sessions Contribute to Even Work Distribution in Student Teams?

Unfair work distribution is common in project-based learning with teams of students. One contributing factor is that students are differently skilled developers. To mitigate the differences in a course with group work, we introduced mandatory programming lab sessions. The intervention did not affect the work distribution, showing that more is needed to balance the workload. Contrary to our goal, the intervention was very well received among experienced students, but unpopular with students weak at programming.