1. What has Driven the Contradictory Findings?
Training Spatial Skills: What works, for whom, and for how long?
David H. Uttal1, Nathaniel G. Meadow1, Linda L. Hand1, Alison R. Lewis1, Christopher Warren1, & Nora S. Newcombe2
1Northwestern University, 2Temple University
Why Spatial Skills?
What has Driven the Contradictory Findings?
Are Spatial Skills Malleable?
STEM – Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics
Informal link between Spatial Skills and STEM success
Hedges & Chung (in prep), Humphreys, Lubinski & Yao (1993), Shea Lubinski & Benbow, (2001), Wai et. al. (2009), and Learning to Think Spatially (NRC, 2006).
This meta-analysis investigates SILC initiatives 1, Characterize and chart development of STEM relevant spatial skills; 2, Understand tools for spatial learning; 3, Improve spatial skills, spatial learning and STEM education, and 6, Build spatial learning as a field.
In a word  Yes
Average effect size for each study design
½ SD Improvement *
Presence and type of control group has a significant effect on the magnitude of the effect size reported.
Treatment Relative to Control
Are spatial skills malleable or not? If so…
Are spatial gains durable?
Are spatial gains transferrable to a novel task?
Sex Differences?
Age Differences?
What has driven the contradictory findings in the field of spatial training?
How can we effectively teach spatial skills?
Are Spatial Gains Durable?
We compared the effect sizes across four different delay lengths from the end of training to the post-test.
We found no significant differences across the delays, p > .15
Spatial gains
are durable.
One reason control groups improve is the implicit training received from doing a filler task that is spatial in nature.
Method
We meta-analyzed 217 studies across the spatial training field.
We searched PsycInfo, Proquest, and ERIC data bases for relevant studies; we also requested articles from authors.
The Search: To be a hit, a study had to have at least one item from column A and at least one item from column B.
Column A Column B
Are Spatial Gains Transferrable to a Novel Task?
Yes. The Treatment Relative to Control effect size for transfer tasks was .54 (SE = .02).
 More than 1/2 SD improvement with training.
Sex and Differences?
There was a male advantage for both pre- and post-tests.
The male advantage on the pre-test was significantly larger than the male advantage on the post-test, p < .05.
Females improved more with training: Remediation occurred.
Age Differences?
How to Improve Spatial Skills
We have identified many effective ways of enhancing spatial thinking, including:
Taking spatially demanding courses, such as geoscience (McAuliffe, 2003)
Generated an effect size .64
Progressive alignment
Multiple manners of testing
Intensive, spatially demanding video games
(Feng, Spence, & Pratt, 2007)
Generated an effect size of 1.19
Video games are a potential method to increase remediation between males and females.
Spatial skills can be improved outside of the classroom.
training
practice
education
“experience in”
“experience with”
“experience of”
instruction
“spatial relation”
“spatial relations”
“spatial orientation”
“spatial ability”
“spatial abilities”
“spatial task”
“spatial tasks”
visuospatial
geospatial
“spatial visualization”
“mental rotation”
“water-level”
“embedded figures”
horizontality
How to compare across different studies?
Hedges’ g Effect Sizes were used.
Traditionally effect sizes are considered:
- Small – ES ~ 0.25  ¼ SD Improvement
- Medium – ES ~ 0.50  ½ SD Improvement
- Large – ES ~ 0.80 and up  Better than ¾ SD Improvement
Cohen, J. (1988).
Children younger than 13 improved more than children 13 – 18, and adults older than 18
The Spatial Intelligence & Learning Center is composed of the following universities and is funded by an NSF Science of Learning Centers grant.