Enhancing the visuo‐spatial aptitude of students

Abstract

Research to date has not been able to agree whether visuo-spatial ability can be influenced through practice. Many have concluded that spatial awareness is an innate phenomena and cannot be learned. Others contend that an individual's visuo-spatial potentials are acquired through interactions with the environment. Many of these theorists believe that spatial thinking can be developed through interactive exercises devised to encourage mental image formation and manipulation. To help alleviate the confusion surrounding this question the following study was undertaken. Eighty-four college undergraduates were randomly placed into control and experimental sections. Student records were examined to assure that the groups did not differ significantly in their verbal or math proficiency and pertinent pretests were given to ascertain spatial levels. The groups were also similar on their male and female ratios. During the semester the experimental section was treated to a 30-minute interaction each week. These sessions involved spatial exercises that required the participants to mentally bisect three-dimensional geometric figures and to envision the shape of the two-dimensional surface formed by the bisection. The subjects drew their mental image of this surface on a sheet of paper. Fourteen weeks later both groups were post tested with a second comparable version of the pretest. Statistical "t" tests were performed on the group means to see if significant differences developed between the sections. The results indicate that statistical improvement in visuo-spatial cognition did occur for the experimental group in spatial visualization, and spatial orientation. This finding suggests that the weekly intervention sessions had a positive effect on the students' visuo-spatial awareness. These results, therefore, tend to support those researchers that claim visuo-spatial aptitude can be enhanced through teaching.

Image interpretation performance: A longitudinal study from novice to professional

“…This finding supports the notion that males on average have one standard deviation higher spatial intelligence quotient than females 16 however other research has found no difference by gender 17 and identified that visuo-spatial aptitude can be enhanced through teaching 18 . It is perhaps the spatial aptitude that is important and not the gender; a subject for further research.…”

Las habilidades espaciales de los estudiantes de las nuevas titulaciones técnicas. Estudio en la Universidad de Granada

“…As pointed out in numerous studies (e.g. Bishop, 1978;Lord, 1985), all these circumstances are provoking an impoverishment of the spatial La habilidad espacial en las nuevas titulaciones técnicas La visión espacial y el uso del boceto como medio de expresión gráfica son capacidades fundamentales de todo ingeniero o arquitecto en el desempeño de su actividad profesional. En el proceso de diseño, mediante el empleo de croquis y bocetos se realizan sucesivas aproximaciones a la solución, gracias a la capacidad de visión espacial que permite tanto la realización de los bocetos como el razonamiento sobre los mismos.…”

“…Como ya ha sido puesto de manifiesto en numerosos estudios (Bishop, 1978;Kyllonen et al, 1984;Lord, 1985;McArthur & Wellner, 1996), todas estas circunstancias están provocando un empobrecimiento de las habilidades espaciales y de bocetado de los alumnos en relación a los planes de estudio tradicionales, lo cual origina a corto plazo dificultades en el aprendizaje de las materias relacionadas con la Geometría y con la Expresión Grá-fica, y a medio plazo una merma en la capacidad de diseño espacial en los alumnos próximos al egreso.…”

Making connections improving spatial abilities with engineering drawing activities

“…Although there are somewhat conflicting results in the literature regarding whether spatial ability can be improved, numerous studies (e.g., Ben-Chaim et al, 1988;Lord, 1985;Burnett & Lane, 1980) have indicated that it can be improved through training if appropriate materials are provided. As stated in the previous section, spatial relations tasks require one to imagine the rotations of 2D and 3D geometrical shapes, which can be found in many engineering drawing applications.…”