Pathways From Spatial Skills to Mathematics: The Roles of Gender and Fluid Reasoning

Abstract

There are contentious and persistent gender differences reported in some measures of spatial skills, particularly mental rotation and, to a lesser extent, perspective‐taking, which may have an impact on mathematics success. Furthermore, pathways between spatial skills and mathematics may be mediated by other cognitive factors, such as fluid reasoning. Participants (N = 320, age range 8–12 years) completed measures of mental rotation, perspective‐taking, fluid reasoning, and mathematics. Regression analyses were conducted to assess the mediation effect of fluid reasoning on the relations between mental rotation and perspective‐taking, and mathematics. Moderated mediation was performed to assess the effects of gender and age on these relations. Mental rotation and perspective‐taking both predicted performance in mathematics for the overall sample, and fluid reasoning was found to partially mediate these relations. For mental rotation, gender moderated the mediation model, with mental rotation directly predicting performance in mathematics for males but not females. The mediation model for perspective‐taking and mathematics was not moderated by gender. Although a predictor of performance, age did not moderate any of the reported relations. These findings suggest that gender differences in some spatial skills, such as mental rotation, may extend to the pathways linking the skills to mathematics. Although mental rotation may be predictive of mathematics performance for boys, the same might not be so for girls. Extrinsic spatial skills, such as perspective‐taking, offer new pathways to explore in the growing body of work examining the links between spatial reasoning and mathematics.