Educational Research in Developing 3‐D Spatial Skills for Engineering Students

TLDR

Three‑dimensional spatial visualization, especially mental rotation, is critical for engineering success but shows pronounced gender gaps favoring males, a pattern that has been studied for nearly a century. The study seeks practical strategies to enhance 3‑D spatial skills, particularly for female engineering students. Over a decade of applied research has been undertaken to develop and test interventions for improving 3‑D spatial skills. The paper reports effective strategies that significantly improve 3‑D spatial skills and contribute to student success.

Abstract

The ability to visualize in three dimensions is a cognitive skill that has been shown to be important for success in engineering and other technological fields. For engineering, the ability to mentally rotate 3‐D objects is especially important. Unfortunately, of all the cognitive skills, 3‐D rotation abilities exhibit robust gender differences, favoring males. The assessment of 3‐D spatial skills and associated gender differences has been a topic of educational research for nearly a century; however, a great deal of the previous work has been aimed at merely identifying differences. The author has been conducting applied research in the area of spatial skills development for more than a decade aimed at identifying practical methods for improving 3‐D spatial skills, especially for women engineering students. This paper details the significant findings obtained over the past several years through this research and identifies strategies that appear to be effective in developing 3‐D spatial skills and in contributing to student success.