Using Sport-Specific State-Based Mental Models to Scaffold Introductory Java Learning for Student-Athletes: A Wrestling-Inspired Conceptual and Pedagogical Framework

Introductory Java programming requires learners to reason about abstract computational concepts such as program state, control flow, and execution order, which often present substantial difficulties for novice programmers. These challenges may be further intensified for collegiate student athletes when programming instruction remains disconnected from the domain knowledge that shapes their prior experiences. This paper proposes a wrestling-inspired, state-based pedagogical framework that leverages the rule system of National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) wrestling as an analogical knowledge domain for introducing foundational Java programming concepts. Within this framework, wrestling match states and scoring actions are systematically mapped to core programming constructs, which include variable assignment, conditional branching, loops, method invocation, and program termination. This paper is positioned as a conceptual and pedagogical framework study rather than an empirical intervention study. It focuses on the theoretical rationale, conceptual alignment, instructional mappings, and classroom implementation possibilities of a wrestling-inspired approach. This paper does not report participant data, learning assessments, or comparative outcome measures. Instead, it illustrates how sport-specific mental models can be transformed into structured instructional representations that may support learners’ reasoning about program execution. By integrating domain-aligned cognitive schemas with programming instruction, the proposed framework offers a structured knowledge scaffolding approach that is designed to support novice understanding of computational processes in introductory programming education.