Situating Space: Using a Discipline-Focused Lens to Examine Spatial Thinking Skills

Abstract

Spatial skills are an important component of success in STEM fields. A majority of what we know about spatial skills today is a result of over 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.

Using eye gaze to reveal cognitive processes and strategies of engineering students when solving spatial rotation and mental cutting tasks

“…Spatial ability relevant to computer programming (Jones & Burnett, 2008) includes visualizing processes and data flows (Cheah, 2020), while surgery and geology require visualizing cross sections of anatomical structures and geological sites, respectively (Kali & Orion, 1996; Orion et al, 1997; Rochford, 1985). There are abundant examples illustrating how STEM education requires students to engage in such different types or categories of spatial thinking as mental rotation, perspective taking, and navigation (Atit et al, 2020; Cheng, 2017), and substantial research has indicated that spatial skills predict outcomes not only in education but also in careers (Buckley et al, 2018; Wai et al, 2009).…”