Situating space: using a discipline-focused lens to examine spatial thinking skills

Abstract

Spatial skills are an important component of success in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields. A majority of what we know about spatial skills today is a result of more than 100 years of research focused on understanding and identifying the kinds of skills that make up this skill set. Over the last two decades, the field has recognized that, unlike the spatial skills measured by psychometric tests developed by psychology researchers, the spatial problems faced by STEM experts vary widely and are multifaceted. Thus, many psychological researchers have embraced an interdisciplinary approach to studying spatial thinking with the aim of understanding the nature of this skill set as it occurs within STEM disciplines. In a parallel effort, discipline-based education researchers specializing in STEM domains have focused much of their research on understanding how to bolster students' skills in completing domain-specific spatial tasks. In this paper, we discuss four lessons learned from these two programs of research to enhance the field's understanding of spatial thinking in STEM domains. We demonstrate each contribution by aligning findings from research on three distinct STEM disciplines: structural geology, surgery, and organic chemistry. Lastly, we discuss the potential implications of these contributions to STEM education. Significance statementWith more than 50% of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) majors leaving the STEM fields prior to graduation, there has been an increased focus on improving STEM retention rates at universities across the USA (National Science Foundation, 2018). Spatial skills are an important component of success in STEM fields and have been the focus of much psychological research for the last 100 years. Yet, only in the last few decades has the field of psychology come to recognize the complexity and nuance of the spatial tasks carried out by STEM experts during their practice. Consequently, a growing number of researchers are taking an interdisciplinary perspective on spatial thinking in STEM, with the aim of broadening our understanding of the kinds of spatial skills required to practice STEM domains. In a parallel effort, having a strong appreciation for the importance of spatial thinking to STEM reasoning and problem-solving, discipline-based education researchers have focused much research on understanding how to bolster students' skills in completing domain-specific spatial tasks. This paper highlights critical lessons learned from interdisciplinary and discipline-based education research in three STEM fields-structural geology, surgery, and chemistry-and considers their implications for how to support students' STEM learning and success at advanced educational levels.

Advancing multimedia learning for science: Comparing the effect of virtual versus physical models on student learning about stereochemistry

“…Findings from this study are also aligned with prior research indicating that domain-general spatial skills alone do not capture the complex, context-dependent, multifaceted spatial thinking required to solve discipline-specific spatial problems (see Atit et al, 2020 for a more complete discussion). For instance, studies have found that students' domain-general spatial skills, such as mental rotation skills which were measured in this study, are not always essential for carrying out domain-specific applications (e.g., Stieff et al, 2014;Stull et al, 2012).…”

Examining the relations between spatial skills and mathematical performance: A meta-analysis

“…Thus, we use percent of male participants as an indirect measure of whether the magnitude of the correlation between spatial and mathematical skills differs as a function of the percent of male participants. Spatial skills Tasks that were considered as measures of spatial skills assessed participants' skills in visualizing and/or mentally manipulating objects or figures or navigating spaces (Atit, Uttal, & Stieff, 2020b;Newcombe & Shipley, 2015). Common examples of measures of spatial skills include the Mental Rotations Test (Peters et al, 1995;Vandenberg & Kuse, 1978), the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence (WPPSI-IV) Block Design subtest (Wechsler, 2012), and the Paper Folding test (Ekstrom et al, 1976).…”

From a virtual field trip to geologically reasoned decisions in Yosemite Valley

“…Google Earth-based VFTs are also an effective means to scaffold students' spatial skills. Spatial skills are a set of cognitive skills that enable us to manipulate, organize, reason about, and make sense of spatial relationships in real and imagined spaces (e.g., Atit et al, 2020;Newcombe and Shipley, 2015;Uttal et al, 2013). Field geology heavily relies on the use of spatial skills, as the goal is to use present-day spatial properties to infer the geologic history of a region (e.g., Atit et al, 2020;Shipley and Tikoff, 2016).…”