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(Ed.)
This Research to Practice work-in-progress paper examines the impact of eGrove Education’s Spatial Vis touchscreen application for teaching spatial visualization. Research has shown that competency with spatial visualization is correlated with success in engineering, but few engineering programs explicitly teach this skill. In this paper, we describe a controlled trial (n=55) in which the app was assigned as homework for the experimental group, but no additional lecture time was dedicated to spatial visualization training. Our analysis focuses on students who entered the course with limited spatial visualization experience as identified based on a score of ≤70% on the PSVT:R (a reliable, well-validated instrument). Among these low- performing students, those who used the app showed remarkable progress – 8 of 13 (62%) raised their test scores above 70% compared to just 2 of 14 (14%) in the control group. Students in both the experimental and control groups showed statistically significant increases between the pre- and post-test scores (paired t-test), though the difference in the gains between the two groups was statistically insignificant as the study was underpowered. While larger trials will be needed, this work suggests that the Spatial Vis app is a promising intervention for training spatial visualization skills.
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