Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Interaction with environmental resources such as technological tools facilitates conceptual learning and preparation for future learning. Writing and compiling code, failing, and trying again fosters deep understanding of computational concepts. This study investigates knowledge gap awareness as potential mediating cognitive mechanism in the learning process from situated interaction with a technological tool to internalized conceptual understanding. Students engaged in a tool-mediated or tool-dissociated learning activity on functional programming and were subsequently assessed on their learning again under tool-mediated or tool-dissociated conditions. Students’ assessment performances were triangulated with their open comments and questionnaire responses on the study’s learning and assessment activities. The findings support the assumption of tool-mediation facilitating knowledge gap awareness, which in turn facilitates conceptual learning.