Dynamic Assessment of Spatial Abilities of Young Children: Effects of Gender and Task Characteristics

Abstract

The main objectives of this study were to investigate: (a) gender differences in spatial abilities of kindergartners, (b) the effects of a teaching, using dynamic assessment (DA), on cognitive modifiability of spatial abilities, and (c) the effects of task characteristics (rotation, symmetry, complexity) on mental rotation performance. Thirty two boys and 32 kindergarten girls, 5 to 6 years old, were administered the Spatial Relations subtest (PMA), the Mental Rotation subtest (CMB), the Visual Figure Ground test, and the Dynamic Embedded Figures Test. The results revealed a significant pre- to postteaching improvement in mental rotation and spatial visualization in both gender groups. Boys showed higher performance than girls on easy preteaching mental rotation tasks but the girls closed the gap on the postteaching test. On difficult mental rotation tasks (e.g., higher rotation or higher complexity) boys and girls showed similar pre-teaching performance, but boys showed higher performance than girls on the postteaching test. Pearson correlations between spatial and verbal abilities were higher among girls than among boys — a result which was explained by the girls’ tendency to use their verbal abilities for solving spatial problems, especially for the spatial visualization tasks. Boys tended to separate between the two domains and use a holistic spatial strategy.

Gender Differences in Spatial Ability of Young Children: The Effects of Training and Processing Strategies

“…Construction of the WT was based on the Mental Rotation subtest of the CMB (Tzuriel, 1995(Tzuriel, , 2000a(Tzuriel, , 2000bTzuriel & Egozi, 2006). Designed for children in first to fourth grades, it includes three difficulty levels (WT1, WT2, and WT3).…”

“…For the purpose of this study, we constructed a mental rotation test, which is based on the Mental Rotation subtest of the Cognitive Modifiability Battery (CMB; Tzuriel, 1995Tzuriel, , 2000aTzuriel, , 2000bTzuriel & Egozi, 2006) and an intervention program aimed at training global strategies of representing and transforming of spatial information based on Wheatley's (1996) ''Quick Draws'' activities. According to Piaget and Inhelder (1956), these abilities are vital components in mental rotation performance.…”

“…In a recent study by Tzuriel and Egozi (2006), gender differences in mental rotation were investigated among 5-to 6-year-old kindergarten children. The objectives were to investigate the interactive effects of gender, treatment, and task characteristics on spatial abilities tasks using a dynamic assessment (DA) procedure (Haywood & Lidz, 2007;Lidz & Elliott, 2000;Sternberg & Grigorenko, 2002;Tzuriel, 2001).…”

“…Unlike the short 1-hr intervention (teaching phase of a DA procedure) used earlier (Tzuriel & Egozi, 2006), in the current study we used a more intensive intervention approach composed of eight small group sessions (45 min each).…”

“…Following Tzuriel and Egozi's (2006) study, our main hypothesis was that initial gender differences in mental rotation will be reduced by the use of adequate training based on developing cognitive processing strategies of representation and transformation of visuospatial information. We also hypothesized that boys will show higher global strategies in processing visuospatial tasks than girls who will tend to show local strategies, and that the initial gender differences will disappear when Global-Local Processing Strategies (GLPS) are considered.…”