Spatial reasoning is a valuable cognitive tool which enables navigation of the body in relation to other objects in space, permits deconstruction of dimensional forms, allows reconstruction of two-dimensional representations into three-dimensional objects, and facilitates diagramming of processes or concepts. A considerable body of work has…

While current educational standards serve to ensure all students have access to quality education that engages them in learning the skills that STEM teaches, there continues to be a gap in female students taking STEM-related classes in high school and subsequently entering STEM related careers. Gaining female learners' interest in STEM during…

This study highlights the power of place, and reconceptualizes geography education as integral to the larger project of teaching for democratic citizenship. Using an interactive web platform, the researchers asked 29 seventh grade girls to research and map significant cultural and historical places associated with an ethnic group, or women, in the…

Meta-analytic studies have concluded that although training improves spatial cognition in both sexes, the male advantage generally persists. However, because some studies run counter to this pattern, a closer examination of the anomaly is warranted. The authors investigated the acquisition of a basic skill (spatial selective attention) using a…

The test scores of spatial ability for women lag behind those of men in many spatial tests. On the Mental Rotations Test (MRT), a significant gender gap has existed for over 20 years and continues to exist. High spatial ability has been linked to efficiencies in typical computing tasks including Web and database searching, text editing, and…

The aim of the 2018 International Association for Development of the Information Society (IADIS) Cognition and Exploratory Learning in the Digital Age (CELDA) conference was to address the main issues concerned with evolving learning processes and supporting pedagogies and applications in the digital age. There have been advances in both cognitive…

This National Center for Education Research (NCER) Practice Guide is the second in a series of IES guides in education. The goal of this practice guide is to formulate specific and coherent evidence-based recommendations that educators can use to encourage girls in the fields of math and science. The target audience is teachers and other school…

We have previously reported in this journal that spatial ability influences academic performance in engineering. We have also reported that spatial ability is trainable, and can be increased through instruction focused on using perception and mental imagery in three-dimensional representation. In this article, we present the results of a…

A systematic research program will study the cumulative effects of selected instructional variables on learning a spatial visualization task. The goal of the research is to identify instructional variables that will improve the performance of female students on the Aircraft Instrument Comprehension (AIC) test. The AIC program is intended to teach…

Women are making progress in many areas of science, but a gender gap still remains, especially in physics, computer science, and engineering, and at advanced levels of academic and career achievement. Today's teachers can help narrow this gap by instilling a love for science in their female students and by helping them to understand and develop…

Thirteen females with Turner syndrome, 13 females with nonverbal learning disabilities, and 14 males with nonverbal learning disabilities, ages 7-14, were taught via a cognitive behavioral modification approach to verbally mediate a spatial matching task. All three groups showed significant task improvement after the training, with no significant…

This volume of the 30th annual proceedings of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education conference presents: plenary panel papers; research forum papers; short oral communication papers; and poster presentation papers from the meeting. Information relating to discussion groups and working sessions is also provided.…