Computation is an important skill that is used in almost all modern scientific investigations. For this reason, the task of educating the population on the use of computation in engineering is of primary interest to many professionals -- from industry to academia. Although there has been much prior research on computation in education broadly, prior research within the particular sub-discipline of introductory physics still has many unanswered questions that must be addressed. At the forefront of these unanswered questions, there is increasing interest in the various computational practices that students engage in and the types of thinking that accompany them. Accordingly, this thesis attempts to deepen the understanding of computation by identifying and defining the computational practices that are indicative of computational thinking that introductory physics students frequently engage in. First, we identified the common, less common, and unobserved computational practices in a novel physics classroom -- Projects and Practices in Physics (${\\rm P}. {3}$) -- by using a theoretical framework and two qualitative methodologies. Identifying the broad and sometimes vague computational practices defined by the theoretical framework was facilitated by both a task and a thematic analysis applied to in-class video data.Next, we defined those practices in concrete terms relative to the course from which data was collected. Each practice has a set of characteristics, and each characteristic has a set of qualities that can be defined in terms of the physical concepts that students must grapple with in this and related courses.Finally, we provide discussion on the possible lines of reasoning behind a given practice's frequency. Many of the learning goals that the course was designed around inevitably influenced the types of frequencies of the practices that we identified.Answering these types of questions is of importance to anyone interested in integrating computation into the undergraduate physics curriculum. A better understanding of the different computational practices that students engage in can only help to mitigate the many challenges associated with teaching computation. Accordingly, this thesis is meant to shed light on the computational practices that students frequently engage in while solving introductory physics and engineering problems.
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