EMBODIMENT IN COMPUTER SCIENCE LEARNING: HOW SPACE, METAPHOR, GESTURE, AND SKETCHING SUPPORT STUDENT LEARNING

Recently, correlational studies have found that psychometrically assessed spatial skills may be influential in learning computer science (CS). Correlation does not necessarily mean causation; these correlations could be due to several reasons unrelated to spatial skills. Nonetheless, the results are intriguing when considering how students learn to program and what supports their learning. However, it's hard to explain these results. There is not an obvious match between the logic for computer programming and the logic for thinking spatially. CS is not imagistic or visual in the same way as other STEM disciplines since students can't see bits or loops. Spatial abilities and STEM performance are highly correlated, but that makes sense because STEM is a highly visual space. In this thesis, I used qualitative methods to document how space influences and appears in CS learning. My work is naturalistic and inductive, as little is known about how space influences and appears CS learning. I draw on constructivist, situative, and distributed learning theories to frame my investigation of space in CS learning. I investigated CS learning through two avenues. The first is as a sense-making, problem-solving activity, and the second is as a meaning-making and social process between teachers and students. In some ways, I was inspired to understand what was actually happening in these classrooms and how students are actually learning and what supports that learning. While looking for space, I discovered the surprising role embodiment and metaphor played while students make sense of computation and teachers express computational ideas. The implication is that people make meaning from their body-based, lived experiences and not just through their minds, even in a discipline such as computing, which is virtual in nature. For example, teachers use the following spatial language when describing a code trace: "then, it goes up here before going back down to the if-statement." The code is not actually going anywhere, but metaphor and embodiment are used to explain the abstract concept. This dissertation makes three main contributions to computing education research. First, I conducted some of the first studies on embodiment and space in CS learning. Second, I present a conceptual framework for the kinds of embodiment in CS learning. Lastly, I present evidence on the importance of metaphor for learning CS.Ph.D