2013 Conference Proceedings - University of Nevada, Las Vegas

journal prompt would be given as a follow up. During the final two weeks of the study, the finalfocus group discussion was held, and post-measures of the PSVT, the MPI, and the STAS wereexecuted and scored. These data were collected and fully analyzed.Results from the quantitative data were used to determine if the integration of eight weeks ofspatial activities resulted in significant differences in scores on the PSVT, the MPI, andindividual statements on the STAS. Analysis of the qualitative data—responses to journalprompts, focus group interviews, and observations—was used to examine the influence of thespatial tasks on the perceptions and beliefs about spatial thinking on students and pre-serviceelementary teachers. Moreover, the same data were used to evaluate how pre-service teachersviewed their own understanding of spatial thinking and its relevance in their daily lives andfuture classrooms. After the quantitative data had been scored and tested and the qualitative datahad been coded and themed, the data were analyzed in its entirety and conclusions were drawn.Summary of the FindingsSpatial Tasks and Spatial AbilityThe first research question investigated the influence of spatial tasks on students’ spatialvisualization abilities. Bruner (1973) believed children explore new things first through actionthen through imagery before, finally, using language to describe and comprehend the worldaround them. Through this reasoning, spatial thinking is a necessary step to learning.To help investigate the first research question, both qualitative and quantitative data werecollected and analyzed. Qualitative analysis on student-written responses and focus groupdiscussions revealed that students believed their spatial thinking abilities could improve withpractice. This was encouraging given the fact that 60.6% of the class described themselves aspossessing average or below-average ability at best in response to a journal prompt which askedstudents to describe their ability to think spatially. Using quantitative analysis, the PSVT servedas a pre- and post-measure to assess student spatial visualization ability. The PSVT, developedby Guay (1980), was comprised of three parts: Developments, Rotations, and Views. TheDevelopments section (PSVT/DEV) measured spatial structuring; the Rotations section(PSVT/ROT) measured mental rotation ability; while the Views section (PSVT/VIEW)measured spatial perception. Initial assessment of the data revealed an increase in test scores anda decrease in the number of incomplete responses. The DEV, ROT and VIEW sections of thePSVT showed a 27.9%, 33.3% and 60% increase in correct responses from the pre- to post-Proceedings of the 40 th Annual Meeting of the Research Council on Mathematics Learning 2013 70