However, how the embodied researcher influences the research encounter and the resultant data and analysis remains relatively under-explored or under-reported (Turner and Norwood 2013; Underwood, Satterthwait and Bartlett 2010) and Clarke (2012) has called for increasing consideration of the embodied researcher in gerontology.
Certainly, this broad definition of bodily engagement should not be misunderstood in a manner suggesting that virtually all forms of cognitive learning research could somehow be construed to qualify as embodied learning research.
Furthermore, one may question why these four particular combinations should be the optimal way to categorize embodied learning research given the arguments we presented earlier.
Our paper introduces the embodied cognition research in the context of manipulatives, hand gestures, and whole-body movement so that educators and scientists can leverage that foundational knowledge to further research and develop technologically enhanced embodied mathematical activities.
Recent results in embodied cognition research seem to tip the balance further into the direction of a process-based philosophy of mind, since they suggest that the bodily interaction of an organism plays a constitutive role in cognition.
On the one hand, a large part of embodied learning research is concerned with instructional settings involving learners' entire body (e.g. Johnson-Glenberg, Birchfield, Tolentino, & Koziupa, 2014; Lindgren, Tscholl, Wang, & Johnson, 2016).
Although some theoretical models emphasize the role of extensive forms of bodily movement (such as locomotion) in embodied learning research (e.g. Johnson-Glenberg et al., 2014), we propose a more general model based on the dimensions of bodily engagement and task integration.
As we have presented in this review, bodily engagement should not be regarded as the primary dimension of embodied learning research, but also how strongly various degrees of bodily engagement are integrated into a task (based on Wilson and Golonka, 2013).
