Being able to talk about your code is not a weird thing you only do in interviews. It's an essential part of your everyday work, and the programmers who don't do this well are in a sense underperforming.
So just removing the talking part, as this study did, removes an important part of the interviewing. When I interview people, I value their ability to talk about the problem and how they think about it more than coming up with great code quickly. I need people who can talk to me, not just the compiler.
That said, talking through your whiteboard programming task might not be the ideal way to measure this skill either.
Writing working code well and fast is important.
But so is communicating with your coworkers!
Being able to talk about your code is not a weird thing you only do in interviews. It's an essential part of your everyday work, and the programmers who don't do this well are in a sense underperforming.
So just removing the talking part, as this study did, removes an important part of the interviewing. When I interview people, I value their ability to talk about the problem and how they think about it more than coming up with great code quickly. I need people who can talk to me, not just the compiler.
That said, talking through your whiteboard programming task might not be the ideal way to measure this skill either.