Spatial Thinking and STEM Education. When, Why, and How?

By David H. Uttal, Cheryl Cohen. 2012

497 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Subfields: Artificial Intelligence, Automotive Engineering, Geography, Planning and Development

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/17b4be68f78f3827c7d56db7b04be5546c7ec1d2

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Artificial Intelligence

1. Steven J. Holochwost
2. Kelly Fisher
3. Kristin Gagnier
4. Holly A. Taylor
5. Thomas F. Shipley
6. David H. Uttal

In Automotive Engineering

1. Tracy Logan
2. Thomas Lowrie
3. Steven J. Holochwost
4. Kelly Fisher
5. Kristin Gagnier
6. Holly A. Taylor
7. Allyson Hutton
8. A. Ramful

In Geography, Planning and Development

1. Thomas Lowrie
2. Tracy Logan
3. Steven J. Holochwost
4. Kelly Fisher
5. Kristin Gagnier
6. Holly A. Taylor
7. Allyson Hutton
8. A. Ramful

Citations in the corpus

• Think3d!: Training Spatial Thinking Fundamental to STEM Education (2013, background): “With these suggestive studies and the strength of research supporting both the effectiveness of spatial training and the role of spatial thinking in STEM, it stands to reason that visuospatial training should impact STEM thinking (see Uttal & Cohen, 2012 for a similar argument).”
• Training early visuo-spatial abilities: A controlled classroom-based intervention study (2019, background): “Visuo-spatial abilities (VSA) have been related to performance in several educational domains, especially the so-called STEM disciplines (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) (for a review see Uttal & Cohen, 2012).”
• Spatial thinking in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics: Elementary teachers' beliefs, perceptions, and self‐efficacy (2021, methodology): “…Thinking for Solving Problems : Drawing upon the previously described work Durlak and DuPre (2008) and the literature linking spatial thinking to STEM (Uttal & Cohen, 2012), we developed this 18-item measure to assess teachers' perceptions of the importance of spatial skills in solving problems.”
• A Heuristic Framework of Spatial Ability: a Review and Synthesis of Spatial Factor Literature to Support its Translation into STEM Education (2018, unknown): “Specifically within STEM education, spatial skills can become less predictive of STEM performance as learners gain discipline experience (Hambrick et al. 2012; Hambrick and Meinz 2011; Uttal and Cohen 2012).”
• Evaluating Geoscience Students' Spatial Thinking Skills in a Multi-Institutional Classroom Study (2014, background): “It may be, however, that only a threshold level of spatial competence may be necessary for success (Uttal and Cohen, 2012).”
• Measurement of Spatial Ability: Construction and Validation of the Spatial Reasoning Instrument for Middle School Students (2017, background): “Increasingly, there is evidence to suggest strong associations between spatial ability and success in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines (Uttal & Cohen, 2012; Wai, Lubinski, & Benbow, 2009).”
• How Much Can Spatial Training Improve STEM Achievement? (2015, background): “Similarly, among adults spatial ability is more predictive of novice performance than expert performance and that spatial ability may serve as a gatekeeper early in STEM instruction (Keehner et al. 2004; Uttal and Cohen 2012; Uttal et al. 2013b; Wai et al. 2009).”