Metaphor and Creativity in Learning Science

Janice Hansen & Lindsey E. Richland Department of Education University of California, Irvine Eric P. S. Baumer Information Science Cornell University William Tomlinson Information Technology University of California, Irvine ABSTRACT While much work has examined how students think and and learn with metaphors, relatively little research has focused on thinking about metaphors, that is, thinking critically about current metaphors and considering creative alternatives. This paper presents results from a classroombased study that involves metaphor in science learning and incorporates a novel computational technique for analyzing metaphors in text. The results here show that students’ ability to engage with a metaphor’s deep, structural aspects significantly predicts ability to generate creative, novel metaphors. Not only do these results carry implications for how best to incorporate metaphor into instruction, but they also draw attention to the ability to reason critically about metaphors as an important area for future research.