A pretest-training-posttest design assessed whether training to improve spatial skills also improved mathematics performance in elementary-aged children. First grade students (mean age = 7 years, n = 134) and sixth grade students (mean age = 12 years, n = 124) completed training in 1 of 2 spatial skills--spatial visualization or form…

Previous research has demonstrated that cognitive offloading (i.e., externalizing mental processes) is useful for immediate problem solving. However, long-term effects of cognitive offloading on subsequent problem solving without offloading are remarkably understudied. Our main goal was to investigate the effects of representation control (i.e.,…

Many studies in the past decades have focused on low and typical mathematics achievers, yet little is known about children with high mathematics achievement, particularly at a young age. The current study aimed to fill this gap and started from the early work of Krutetskii (1976) as a theoretical lens to study the characteristics of high…

Spatial ability predicts success in STEM (Science, Technology, Education, and Mathematics) fields, particularly chemistry. This paper reports two studies investigating the unique contribution of mental rotation ability to spatial thinking in a STEM discipline. Using authentic disciplinary tasks from chemistry, we show that the difficulty of a…

The overarching goal of this 2-phase study was to investigate the contributions of relational reasoning to mathematical thinking and performance for 790 primary and middle-school Chinese students. Phase I of the study was undertaken to establish the reliability and validity of the Test of Relational Reasoning-Junior (TORRjr), a 32-item measure…

Understanding many scientific phenomena, processes, or systems may be especially dependent on a student's ability to visualize or manipulate spatial information in order to construct mental representations. One instructional technique often included in science texts to help students to understand difficult concepts is the use of concrete or…

Rational number understanding is a critical building block for success in more advanced mathematics; however, how rational number magnitudes are conceptualized is not fully understood. In the current study, we used a dual-task working memory (WM) interference paradigm to investigate the dominant type of strategy (i.e., requiring verbal WM…

Students identified by talent search programs were studied to determine whether spatial ability could uncover math-science promise. In Phase 1, interests and values of intellectually talented adolescents (617 boys, 443 girls) were compared with those of top math-science graduate students (368 men, 346 women) as a function of their standing on…

A spatial-arrangement or word-arrangement mnemonic experiment was conducted in which college students studied six lists of 12 words each under conditions of word pattern and/or mnemonic instruction. Both the link mnemonic and distinctive word arrangements enhanced recall during acquisition, but only word-arrangement had a significant effect on…

How learning styles (massed versus distributed practice) influence the relationship between abilities and task performance was studied with 209 undergraduates. Analysis reveals that perceptual speed contributes to performance for subjects who massed practice, whereas spatial visualization contributed for those who distributed practice.…

This article examines naive conceptions of spatial reference that children bring to Logo programing language learning. Students from Grades 4, 5, 6, and 8 were introduced to six Logo commands, and then were tested on predicting the output for instances of each of the commands. (Author/LMO)

When 1,201 males and 1,145 females responded to a range of spatial questions, males significantly outperformed females on 25 of 72 occasions. On no occasion did females significantly outperform males. Wattanawaha's system for classifying spatial tasks was used to identify qualitative differences in performances of males and females. (Author/CM)

An information-processing model was tested for a laboratory visualization task that represents one adaptation of a standardized spatial ability test. The pattern of results suggests that individual differences are a function of differences in the accuracy and/or quality of the mental representation, not just speed of processing. (Author/BW)

Although girls and boys were similar in cognitive skills and attitudes toward mathematics in grade 8, boys performed significantly better in mathematics by grade 11, even with mathematics background controlled. No sex-related difference in spatial visualization developed. (Author/GDC)

Using 146 high school students, this research assessed the effects of aptitude, strategy training, and item characteristics on the strategic processes employed in the performance of spatial visualization tasks. Treatment effects were shown to depend on the subject's aptitude profile and on the characteristics of items. (BS)