Practice report
Jack Parkinson, Ryan Bockmon, Quintin I. Cutts, Michael Liut, Andrew K. Petersen, Sheryl Sorby · ACM Inroads · 2021
We have been training spatial skills for Computing Science students over several years with positive results, both in terms of the students' spatial skills and their CS outcomes.The delivery and structure of the training has been modified over time and carried out at several institutions, resulting in variations across each intervention.This article describes six distinct case studies of training deliveries, highlighting the main challenges faced and some important takeaways.Our goal is to provide useful guidance based on our varied experience for any practitioner considering the adoption of spatial skills training for their students.view of a 3D object to match another view, then apply the same sequence to another object.There are several cognitive tasks involved: identifying the 3D structure of objects from a 2D representation, formulating and holding the 3D structure in your head, and then being able to make changes to it in-situ.These are different skills, but all contribute towards spatial skills generally. Summary of the Relationship between Spatial Skills and Computer ScienceTwo theories for the relationship between spatial skills and computing have been published.Both Parkinson and Cutts [10] and Margulieux [7] propose that spatial skills are not strictly necessary for succeeding in computing -or STEM -but that they do help.Both theories present the idea that spatial skills develop abstract skills which are valuable in tackling general problems and tasks associated with STEM fields.For example, Parkinson and Cutts suggest that spatial relations (a sub-skill of spatial ability) aid in moving between levels of Schulte's Block Model [13], and Margulieux suggests that repeated spatial skills practice develops encoding strategies for non-verbal information.Both theories are grounded in research but as of yet are not fully tested or explored, so our understanding of spatial skills and their influence on STEM skills is not complete.The first time spatial skills training was run by the authors, not much was known about the relationship between spatial skills and computing science.We were aware of evidence supporting the following:• Spatial skills correlate with success in multiple areas of computing [4,5,10] • Spatial skills correlate with attainment in academic computing [10] • Spatial skills training appeared to impact outcomes in the computing electives of engineering students [15] • Spatial skills training appeared to improve the CS assessment outcomes of students in a summer school [3]• Spatial skills are a more powerful intervening factor than access to computers when examining computing achievement in the context of socio-economic status [9] Since the interventions began, we now know more about the relationship, with research indicating:• Spatial skills training positively impacts outcomes in distinct deliveries of introductory computing programmes [2,11] • Spatial skills are associated with low level expression evaluation [12] • Spatial skills can, particularly when combined with other factors, predict student success in a CS1 programme [1] Spatial Skills Training Courses: Case StudiesAlthough the deployment and delivery of spatial skills training courses differs per implementation, the course content itself is fundamentally the same (with one caveat: Case 6 did not include exercises on paper or cube folding, since the intention of Case 6 was to replicate Cooper et al.'s work in the area as closely as possible, and Cooper did