Longitudinal analysis of spatial ability over an undergraduate engineering degree program

Maxine Fontaine, Alexander John de Rosa

Research output: Contribution to journalConference articlepeer-review

2 Scopus citations

Abstract

This research paper will compare the spatial ability of students in their first year and final year to determine whether spatial skills improve over the course of an undergraduate engineering degree program. In addition, we investigate whether higher spatial ability leads to a higher overall GPA at the time of graduation. This work was initiated with support from NSF Grant #0833076. Spatial ability has been identified as a key indicator of success in STEM. Thus, students with low spatial visualization skills (SVS) are more likely to drop out of an engineering program. Spatial skills can however be improved significantly with focused practice. A spatial skills assessment and training program has been implemented at Stevens Institute of Technology since 2016 and has been shown to be effective; pre- and post-training, average test scores on the Purdue Spatial Visualization Test: Rotations (PSVT:R), a measure of spatial ability, increased from 54.4% to 68.7% in fall 2017 (n=42), and from 55.2% to 68.7% in fall 2018 (n=51). Data collected over the past several years in our spatial skills program allows us to examine whether these immediate gains in spatial ability are retained over the course of a students' education or whether they require practice to be maintained. This study aims to examine both the longitudinal retention of SVS and potential improvements over the course of the engineering degree program. To address these questions, the PSVT:R scores of graduating (senior) engineering students were compared with their PSVT:R scores from their first year. Of the students involved in this study, 102 of 120 participants retained the same level of SVS from first to final year (79% passed the PSVT:R both times, 6% failed both times), while 15% of students shifted from one category to the other (8% initially passed then failed, 7% initially failed then passed). Significant improvements in test score were only observed between pre- and post-test scores for first-year students who participated in the spatial skills training workshop. No difference in these results was observed when students were grouped by gender and no significant link between SVS ability and graduating GPA was observed. Given prior results in this area, the lack of correlation between SVS and GPA was surprising, as was the observed lack of development in SVS through the program. It is possible however that many classes at Stevens do not rely heavily on these skills or that students can make up for them in other ways, e.g. teamwork. Future work will address these questions.

Original languageEnglish
Article number975
JournalASEE Annual Conference and Exposition, Conference Proceedings
Volume2020-June
StatePublished - 22 Jun 2020
Event2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference, ASEE 2020 - Virtual, Online
Duration: 22 Jun 202026 Jun 2020

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