Spatial thinking in STEM
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Transcript of Spatial thinking in STEM
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Spa$al thinking in STEM educa$on: Evidence and issues
microbiology
meteorology
engineering
geology physics
astronomy
anatomy
neuroscience
Cheryl A. Cohen, PhD
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Goals of presenta$on
• General introduc$on to spa$al thinking • Examples of spa$al thinking in science educa$on • Spa$al thinking from a cogni$ve perspec$ve • Empirical evidence that spa$al thinking contributes to science learning
• Exper$se effect • Evidence for malleability of spa$al thinking • Open ques$ons
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What is spa$al thinking?
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Everyday spa$al thinking
• Packing the trunk of your car • Assembling the cabinet you bought at IKEA
• Using a map to find your way in a new town
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Cogni$ve processes
From the perspec$ve of cogni$ve psychology, spa$al thinking refers to the mental processes of: – encoding – storing – manipula$ng – drawing inferences from percep$ons and images depic$ng spa$al rela$onships in 2, 3, and more dimensions.
Individuals vary in their capacity
for these processes.
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Spa$al thinking and working memory
– encoding – storing – manipula$ng
There is evidence that individual differences in these working memory resources contribute to individual differences in spa$al thinking ability.
Working memory processes
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Some qualita$ve differences in spa$al ability
Individuals who underperform on spa$al tasks: – tend to lose informa$on when they aRempt to
mentally transform images (Just & Carpenter, 1985)
– have difficulty changing their view perspec$ve (Kozhevnikov & Hegarty, 2001)
– have difficulty mapping 2D informa$on onto 3D structures (Cohen & Hegarty, 2007)
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Meta-‐analysis of sex differences in spa$al skills
Voyer, Voyer & Bryden (1995) Analyzed 286 studies showing significant differences in spa$al performance by sex. Found significant effect size differences favoring males on a number of spa$al tests. Most robust difference was on mental rota$on tests d = .65
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Examples of spa$al thinking in science
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Spa$al thinking in STEM
• We live in three dimensional space.
• As scien$sts we try to understand the physical forces that act within it.
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Applica$ons of spa$al thinking in science learning
• Represent and solve problems related to physical forces
• Create and understand the spa$al rela$onships within and between physical en$$es (biology, geology)
• Understand models explaining complex (or invisible) processes
• Comprehend graphics, diagrams and 3D visualiza$ons
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Spa$al thinking in organic chemistry
From S;eff, 2007
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Understanding rela$onships between 2D-‐3D views of an object
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Spa$al representa$on of complex data
From Kell, Lubinski, Benbow & Stanley, 2013)
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Classifica$on of spa$al thinking skills
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Factor analy$c approach
History of research in cog psych on the components and processes involved in spa$al thinking. Thurstone (1938): Primary Mental Abili0es. – Intelligence is not a single en$ty, but is composed of separable factors
– Iden$fied seven primary factors, including spa$al visualiza$on
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Factor analy$c approach
• Factor analy$c studies have classified different types of spa$al skills
• A widely used classifica$on is by Carroll (1995)
• Reanalyzed more than 90 factor analy$c studies
• Spa0al visualiza0on was the most commonly measured spa$al factor.
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Spa$al visualiza$on
• Spa0al visualiza0on: the processes of apprehending, encoding, and mentally manipula$ng three-‐dimensional spa$al forms (Carroll, 1993).
• “power in solving increasingly difficult problems involving spa$al forms” (p. 315)
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Mental Rota$on
Standard
A B C D
Instruc;ons: Circle the figure that is a rotated version of the standard.
Mental rota$on skill is classified as a form of spa$al visualiza$on in some factor analyses
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Spa$al visualiza$on task
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Spa$al visualiza$on task
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How did you solve this problem?
• Did you mentally slice the figure and imagine what you would see?
• Did you use an analy$c strategy, such as matching the features of the answer choices to the spa$al proper$es of the test figure?
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Strategies
• Imagis;c strategies: using internal visual spa$al images to reason about scien$fic phenomena
• Analy;c strategies: using algorithms and heuris$cs to reason about external representa$ons
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Evidence for contribu$on of spa$al thinking to performance in science
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Empirical evidence
• Longitudinal studies
• Correla$onal studies of science students
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Longitudinal studies
Longitudinal studies of intellectually talented youth are the strongest source of evidence that spa$al thinking skills contribute to success and par$cipa$on in science
Spa$al ability accounts for a sta$s$cally significant propor$on of the variance in par$cipa$on in science, over and above SAT Mathema$cal and SAT Verbal scales (Shea, Lubinski & Benbow, 2001; Webb, Lubinski & Benbow, 2007).
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Project Talent Study (Wai, Lubinski & Benbow, 2009)
• n = 400,000 • stra$fied random sample • measured spa$al ability at age 13 • followed students for 11+ years • people who received degrees in mathema$cs, engineering and physical sciences and those who went on to pursue scien$fic occupa$ons had significantly higher spa$al abili$es at age 13 than those who received degrees in other fields or prac$ced other professions
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Spa$al ability predicts higher level achievements
• Spa$al ability predicts receiving a Ph.D. in science as opposed to receiving a bachelors’ degree in science) and crea$ve accomplishments (such as patents)
Kell, Lubinski, Benbow & Stanley, 2013
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Correla$onal studies of STEM students Correla$onal studies measure the spa$al abili$es of students in science classes, or in a laboratory and examine the correla$ons of these ability measures with various aspects of science achievement.
• Biology/medicine
• Chemistry
• Physics/engineering
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Correla$onal studies: Anatomy
Rochford (1985): Spa$al ability predicted performance among second year medical students on test items that had spa$al content. Students had difficul$es in processes of sec$oning, transla$ng, rota$ng and visualizing shapes.
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Correla$onal studies: Anatomy
The ability to draw the cross-‐sec$on of a novel three-‐dimensional object was correlated with tests of mental rota$on (r = .39, p < .05) and perspec$ve taking ability ( r = .59, p < .01).
(see next slide for task)
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Instruc;ons Imagine you are looking at the figure on the right from the perspec$ve of the arrow. Draw the cross sec$on of the figure where it is intersected by the line.
Correct answer
Selected par;cipant drawings Cohen & Hegarty (2007)
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Correla$onal studies: Chemistry • Bodner and McMillan (1986) found significant correla$ons
(ranging from .29–.35) between measures of spa$al visualiza$on and measures of performance in an introductory organic chemistry course.
• Other studies indicated small but significant correla$ons (in the .2–.3 range) between measures of spa$al ability and performance in college courses in both general chemistry (Carter, LaRussa, & Bodner, 1987) and organic chemistry (Pribyl & Bodner, 1987).
• Spa$al ability was not significantly correlated with items that measured rote knowledge or the applica$on of simple algorithms.
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Correla$onal studies: Chemistry
Significant effects of spa$al ability (range of .32 -‐ .38 in different studies) on ability to translate between different diagramma$c representa$ons in organic chemistry (Stull, Hegarty, Dixon, & S$eff, 2012).
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Correla$onal studies: Physics
Kozhevnikov and Thornton (2006) found correla$ons of .28-‐.32 between a measure of spa$al visualiza$on ability and mechanics problem solving that force and mo$on events.
(see next slide for sample problem)
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A sled on ice moves in the ways described in ques$ons 1–7 below. Fric$on is so small that it can be ignored. A person wearing spiked shoes standing on the ice can apply a force to the sled and push it along the ice. Choose the one force (A through G), which would keep the sled moving as described in each statement below.
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Correla$onal studies: Physics
• Hegarty and Sims (1994) found correla$ons between spa$al ability and ability to infer the mo$on of different machine components when the machine was working (mental anima$on).
(see next slide for sample problem)
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Instruc;ons: Given the pulley system above, verify if the statements below are true or false:
Hegarty & Sims,
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Issues in interpreta$on of correla$onal studies
• Correla$onal studies are oqen based on small sample sizes
• Researchers focus on par$cularly demanding tasks
• Most observed correla$ons of spa$al ability with science achievement, while sta$s$cally significant, are small
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Exper$se effect
• Correla$ons between spa$al ability and performance in science are more evident for beginning science students than for advanced students or prac$$oners (Hambrick et al., 2012)
• Spa$al abili$es may be more important at the early stages of science learning, with domain-‐specific strategies and conceptual knowledge playing a greater role at later stages (URal & Cohen, 2012).
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Spa$al thinking skills are malleable
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Can spa$al thinking skill be improved?
• URal et al., (2013): Meta-‐analysis of 217 research studies
• Examined three types of studies: – Training that used video games – Semester-‐long course – Prac$ce and strategic instruc$on
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Training meta-‐analysis
Criteria for inclusion in meta-‐analysis: – spa$al training was educa$onally relevant – durability: training effects lasted longer than a few days – there was some transfer to non-‐trained problems and tasks.
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Training meta-‐analysis
• Considered the effects of several moderators, including the presence and type of control groups, sex, age, and type of training.
• Aqer elimina$ng outliers, the average effect size (Hedges’s g) for training rela$ve to control was 0.47 (SE = 0.04).
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Issues in science educa$on
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The Na$onal Research Council (NRC; 2006) surveyed educa$on at all levels (K-‐undergrad) and found that spa$al thinking was…
…“not just undersupported but underappreciated, undervalued, and therefore underinstructed” (p. 5) . • The NRC called for a na$onal commitment to develop spa$al thinking across all areas of the school curriculum.
Spa$al skills are not explicitly trained
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PaRerns of persistence in STEM
• Price (2010): – Followed more than 140,000 science majors at Ohio State University
– More than 40% did not complete STEM major
• Min et al., (2011): – Analyzed paRerns of dropout and persistence in engineering
– Dropout from program is most likely to occur around the third semester.
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Open research ques$ons
• Given evidence for the malleability of spa$al thinking skill, would iden$fica$on of spa$al ability and subsequent scaffolding improve reten$on in STEM?
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Open research ques$ons
• How do other affec$ve/cogni$ve variables contribute to persistence in STEM?, e.g, – mo$va$on
– self-‐efficacy
– stereotype effect (females and underrepresented minori$es)
– incremental vs. en$ty theories of intelligence (is it possible to improve spa$al thinking?)
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References
• A bibliography of studies cited in this talk is available upon request.
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Acknowledgements
Hegarty (2014). Spa$al thinking in undergraduate science educa$on. Spa0al Cogni0on and Computa0on: 14: 142-‐167.
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