Learning to Think Spatially (2006) / Chapter Skim
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Appendix C Individual Differences in Spatial Thinking: The Effects of Age, Development, and Sex
Appendix C Individual Differences in Spatial Thinking: The Effects of Age, Development, and Sex
Pages 266-280
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From page 266... ...
It begins by discussing the notion of learner differences in general, and then considers the links between learner characteristics and spatial thinking. In turn the roles of three factors are discussed: chronological age, developmental level, and biological sex and cultural gender.
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From page 267... ...
Thus, if one were planning to teach some spatial concept that would be taught differently depending on the level of the learner's mental rotation skills, it would be misguided to assume that all boys should get one form of instruction and all girls should get another. Rather, different instructional methods should be assigned to children based on a direct measure of mental rotation ability, not on the basis of their biological sex.
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From page 268... ...
One boy might have relatively poor mental rotation skills but an excellent sense of his body in physical space, whereas another boy might have the reverse profile. THE CONCEPT OF GROUP DIFFERENCES Given the variability among individuals within any kind of group (such as those defined by the learner's biological sex or age)
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From page 269... ...
. At the societal level, individuals within such groups vary in the degree to which they self-identify or are identified by others as being representative of societal gender roles, as illustrated by the concept of "tomboys." Typically, respondents self-report, or researchers judge, physical features of participants to assign them to cat egories variously labeled as "boy or girl," "man or woman," or "male or female." It is rare that either biological sex or cultural gender is actually measured (e.g., by assessing relative amounts of circulating sex hormones or asking respondents to complete some measure of self-endorsement of culturally masculine and feminine traits)
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From page 270... ...
From the perspective of education, the committee does mean that a developmentally appropriate curriculum takes the learner's preparedness into account in what and how it teaches. It does not mean that structured, teacher-directed programs that follow a relatively fixed sequence (as opposed to child-directed, "discovery learning" approaches)
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From page 271... ...
showed that 2-day-old infants are able to make sweeping motions toward moving objects that are in synchrony with the objects' trajectories, even though infants at this age are completely unable to grasp moving objects. Despite the debate over the levels of spatial thinking available during infancy, well before they enter preschool, children have mastered basic spatial relations in physical space, understanding
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Theoretical Approaches to Spatial Development. There are many ways in which spatial thinking becomes increasingly advanced in most children as they move from early, to middle, to late childhood.
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From page 273... ...
Patterns of performance on separate components of spatial skills may also be used to examine the second kind of group difference, that linked to sex of learners. GROUP DIFFERENCES: BIOLOGICAL SEX AND CULTURAL GENDER Sex Differences in Spatial Performance: Descriptions As noted above, factor analytic studies typically reveal subcomponents of spatial skills.
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From page 274... ...
For example, "knowing" that pencils are long and thin made it difficult for young children ever to give up the idea that the shadow would be line like. Although the original reports suggested that children gradually and universally mastered projec tive spatial concepts and hence performed well on the shadow projection task, later research with an adult college population (Merriwether and Liben, 1997)
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From page 275... ...
the preservation of defining features of the unrotated form; (2) a largely symmetrical distinction based on the direction of rotation; and (3)
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From page 276... ...
Based on psychometric studies and on their conceptual analysis of the tasks within empirically derived groups of abilities, Linn and Petersen (1985) identified three categories of spatial ability: spatial perception, mental rotation, and spatial visualization.
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In cases in which homogeneity of effect sizes was not found, studies were partitioned into subgroups based on age and sex, and further partitioned into specialized groups until homogeneous or nearly homogeneous groups of studies were identified. They identified sex differences -- favoring males -- in the first two skills -- spatial perception and mental rotation -- but not the third -- spatial visualization.
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A number of potential biological mechanisms have been considered as possible factors in the observed sexrelated differences in spatial performance. One possibility is that some spatial abilities are controlled by an X-linked recessive gene.
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. Investigators have also examined the effects of levels of circulating sex steroids on behavior, with some evidence that changes in spatial performance may depend on cyclical hormonal changes.
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From page 280... ...
. Consistent with the interactive hypothesis, her data show that the same curriculum enhanced spatial performance (measured by a mental rotation task)
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