This Study was conducted to determine if women in the sciences were as accurate in spatial abilities as male counterparts. An experiment was also conducted to find if an intervention would improve the visuo-spatial awareness of women as rapidly as men. Data indicated that while women tended to start at a lower level, they were able to learn…

There is little agreement about how the ability to read route maps initially emerges and about how it should be stimulated by early childhood educators. This study assessed the route map reading behavior of young children and the basic skills that might contribute to that behavior. In individual videotaped sessions, 120 four, five, and six year…

This volume contains the full text of 2 plenary papers and 26 research reports. In addition, brief, usually one-page, reports are provided for 6 discussion groups, 10 technology focus groups, 7 symposiums, 7 oral presentations, and 17 position sessions. The two full plenary reports are: (1) "Problems of Reification: Representations and…

The aim of this study was to gain a better understanding of the difficulties met by adults with lower levels of education on reading perspective drawings. Subjects were asked to describe verbally two perspective drawings of objects, then choose objects with defined spatial properties. Results indicated that success was an "all or…

Reanalysis of data for 13,200 twelfth-grade students indicated that sex has a significant effect on mathematics achievement even after controlling for sex differences in spatial abilities and background and interest in mathematics. Women tend to have less spatial visualization ability, and its effects on mathematics achievement are greater for…

This study reports data concerning spatial abilities of professional art students. It is part of an ongoing collection of data on spatial abilities on the incoming freshman class at a large major private art school. The battery of eight tests has proven to be highly reliable and valid in previous studies with the specific population. Researchers…

Conservation ability, spatial motor ability, age, and gender were used as predictive variables in a study of 26 kindergarten children's computer programming ability. A preliminary pilot study with first graders had suggested that programming success was related to the ability to reverse thought processes. In both studies, children were taught to…

Seventy fifth-grade students in Australia were observed as each solved a jigsaw puzzle. Boys obtained higher scores on a measure of cognitive style and took less time to complete the jigsaw task; the two measures were significantly correlated. Uses of tangrams are also discussed. (MNS)

Investigated secondary-level students' (N=66) understanding of three-dimensional structures in biology. Results suggest that student performance is highly correlated with age, scientific ability, and sex. Suggestions for instructional improvement in spatial relationships are offered. (ML)

Demonstrates how three- and four-year-old children's (N=20) learning of a completely novel route across a city district is enhanced by an accompanying adult making the child aware of potential landmarks. The importance of permanent/ephemeral landmarks in the child's verbal and modelled-map accounts of the route and educational implications are…

Some research indicates that students often think that their drawings of three dimensional objects can be done without ambiguity, and that properties of drawings are properties of the objects. This "knowing vs. seeing" conflict was studied in three French sixth grade classes. (PK)

The purpose of this correlational study was to examine the possible relationships among children's extracurricular toy-playing habits, sex-role orientations, spatial abilities, and science achievement. Data were gathered from 282 Midwestern, suburban, fifth-grade students. It was found that boys had significantly higher spatial skills than girls.…

Reports on a study in which two spatial tests were given to science and engineering majors and to students in nursing and agriculture at Purdue University (Indiana). Scores from the tests consistently contributed a small but significant amount of success on measures of performance in chemistry. (TW)

This study was designed to determine if the final grade in college biology at a suburban community college was a true measure of student's knowledge. One hundred and seventy undergraduates taking a semester course in biology took part in the study. This population was randomly separated into a control, placebo, and experimental group. The progress…

Two experiments were conducted to assess the performance of freshmen chemistry students with poor spatial visualization skills. In the first experiment, 31 chemistry students with academically deficient backgrounds completed a diagnostic test of their ability to visualize and interpret pictorial representations of simple molecular structures. At…