skip to main content
US FlagAn official website of the United States government
dot gov icon
Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.
https lock icon
Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( lock ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Explore Research Products in the PAR
It may take a few hours for recently added research products to appear in PAR search results.


Title: Preliminary Validation of a Spatial Ability Instrument for the Blind and Low Vision
Spatial ability is an intelligence that has been shown to be particularly important in science, technology, engineering, and math fields. Targeted spatial interventions have been shown to improve spatial ability and support the success of individuals in these fields. However, the blind and low vision community has largely been omitted from this research, in part because no accepted and validated assessment of spatial ability is accessible to this population. This paper describes the development and preliminary validation of a new spatial ability instrument that is designed to be accessible non-visually. Although additional work is needed to finalize the test, preliminary analysis indicates that the test has high reliability and validity.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1712887
PAR ID:
10437215
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ; ; ;
Date Published:
Journal Name:
AERA Annual Meeting
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
More Like this
  1. ; ; (, 2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition)
    Spatial ability has been shown through numerous studies to be a strong predictor of student success in STEM fields. Beyond the classroom, professionals demonstrating higher levels of spatial ability are also more likely to be successful in their STEM careers than their peers with lower spatial ability. Research has also shown that spatial ability is a malleable skill that can be strengthened through targeted intervention and leads to better retention in rigorous STEM fields. For this reason, spatial ability has been a significant focus of engineering education research. Despite the focus on spatial ability in engineering education research, members of the blind and low vision (BLV) population have largely been omitted from research in this area, likely due to the lack of a nonvisually accessible instrument for measuring spatial ability in a tactile format. This work utilizes the Tactile Mental Cutting Test (TMCT), a fully accessible adaptation of the commonly used multiple-choice Mental Cutting Test (MCT) spatial ability instrument which requires participants to identify cross sectional outlines from a three-dimensional object with a cut through it. This paper explores data collected from BLV participants who completed a TMCT test at National Federation of the Blind (NFB) sponsored summer programs for BLV youth, blindness training centers, and state and national NFB conventions. Raw scores from each TMCT participant were analyzed and ranked into high, medium, and low performing groups to help identify main characteristics of each group. In this study we examined patterns in the selected answer choices of the low scoring group to determine frequency of participant selection of distractors for each item of the TMCT. Analysis of the low-performer scores indicate that the majority of low scoring participants select incorrect answer choices that represent a side view or top view of the TMCT object as opposed to the true cross-sectional shape. Furthermore, the results suggest that certain answer choices may be overly difficult to distinguish between due to the tactile format of the exam. Results from this study can inform academia of the inherent differences between tactile and traditional spatial ability instruments and aid in the design of new tactile instruments. 
    more » « less
  2. ; ; ; (, International Journal of Engineering Pedagogy (iJEP))
    Spatial ability is a well-known predictor of success in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. The purpose of this study was to investigate and understand the spatial strategies that were used by blind and low-vision (BLV) individuals as they solved problems on the tactile mental cutting test (TMCT), an instrument that was designed to measure the spatial ability of BLV audiences. The TMCT is an accessible adaptation of the older, 1938 version of the mental cutting test (MCT) that has been used extensively in spatial ability research. Additionally, this paper seeks to compare these strategies with existing strategies that have been investigated with sighted populations. The BLV community is underrepresented in engineering and in spatial ability research. By understanding how BLV students understand and solve spatial problems and concepts, educators can develop and enhance educational content that is relevant to this population. By incorporating perspectives from the BLV community and making STEM curricula accessible to this population, more BLV individuals may be encouraged to pursue STEM or engineering career pathways. 
    more » « less
  3. ; ; ; (, 2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access)
    There is significant work indicating that spatial ability has correlations to student success in STEM programs. Work also shows that spatial ability correlates to professional success in respective STEM fields. Spatial ability has thus been a focus of research in engineering education for some time. Spatial interventions have been developed to improve student’s spatial ability that range from physical manipulatives to the implementation of entire courses. These interventions have had positive impact upon student success and retention. Currently, researchers rely on a variety of different spatial ability instruments to quantify participants spatial ability. Researchers classify an individual’s spatial ability as the performance indicated by their results on such an instrument. It is recognized that this measured performance is constrained by the spatial construct targeted with that spatial instrument. As such, many instruments are available for the researchers use to assess the variety of constructs of spatial ability. Examples include the Purdue Spatial Visualization Test of Rotations (PSVTR), the Mental Cutting Test (MCT), and the Minnesota Paper Foam Board Test. However, at this time, there are no readily accessible spatial ability instruments that can be used to assess spatial ability in a blind or low vision population (BLV). Such an instrument would not only create an instrument capable of quantifying the impacts of spatially focused interventions upon BLV populations but also gives us a quantitative method to assess the effectiveness of spatial curriculum for BLV students. Additionally, it provides a method of assessing spatial ability development from tactile perspective, a new avenue for lines of research that expand beyond the visual methods typically used. This paper discusses the development of the Tactile Mental Cutting Test (TMCT), a non-visually accessible spatial ability instrument, developed and used with a BLV population. Data was acquired from individuals participating in National Federation of the Blind (NFB) Conventions across the United States as well as NFB sponsored summer engineering programs. The paper reports on a National Science Foundation funded effort to garner initial research findings on the application of the TMCT. It reports on initial findings of the instrument’s validity and reliability, as well as the development of the instrument over the first three years of this project. 
    more » « less
  4. ; ; ; (, 2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition)
    Historically, spatial ability assessments have been used to measure spatial thinking on specific constructs in students participating in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) courses. High spatial ability is linked to greater performance in STEM courses and professional STEM career fields. A spatial ability test used commonly for this measurement is the Mental Cutting Test (MCT) developed in 1939 by the College Entrance Examination Board (CEEB). Unfortunately, the MCT is unable to measure the spatial thinking of blind or low-vision (BLV) populations due to the test being only accessible by sight. In 2018, a research lab from Utah State University (USU) adapted the MCT into a fully accessible tactile version, called the Tactile Mental Cutting Test (TMCT). The test was later split into two parallel forms, each containing 12 different questions from the MCT. The TMCT allows for researchers to better measure and understand the spatial abilities of BLV populations. The majority of BLV population samples that have taken the TMCT previously have been participants in training centers for the blind, which serve as training centers for helping BLV populations to build blindness skills and encourage independence. Additional data has been collected from youth camps sponsored by the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) and national and state NFB conventions. During the pandemic of COVID-19, many training centers across the country were closed for safety reasons, and many of the BLV population were confined to their homes to avoid infection risk. In this paper we compare pre-COVID-19 and post-2021 TMCT assessment data from BLV participants including scores and test duration between 2019 and 2022. Results show a statistically significant difference in how long it took participants to complete the TMCT between the two timeframes. 
    more » « less
  5. ; (, ASEE Conferences)
    Spatial visualization is the ability to mentally manipulate, visualize, and transform objects in one’s mind. Numerous research studies have reported that spatial ability is strongly associated with predicting success and retention in STEM-related fields such as math, engineering, computer programming, and science. Spatial skills are a critical cognitive ability for many technical fields, particularly engineering. Studies have shown the importance of free-hand sketching in the development of 3-D spatial skills. Similarly, sketching is an integral skill in the engineering design process, especially in the idea-generation phase. However, little work has been performed examining the link between spatial skills and the quality of sketches produced during the engineering design process. There were two phases to data collection for this research. In the first phase, 127 undergraduate engineering students completed four spatial tests. In the second phase, 101 students returned to complete three design tasks. This paper examines the performance of the 17 low spatial and 13 high spatial visualizers on one of these tasks where individuals are asked to design ways for remote villagers to catch and use rainwater. Through analysis of the sketches produced by the students, initial insights indicate that there may be an association between the spatial skills of students and the quality of the sketches they produce for their engineering design solutions. These insights will be discussed relative to the potential influence of spatial skills and sketch quality on engineering education, specifically in developing design capability. 
    more » « less
  • Citation Formats
  • MLA
  • APA
  • Chicago
  • BibTeX
  • Save / Share this Record
  • Send to Email