What does Space look like in CS? Mapping out the Relationship between Spatial Skills and CS Aptitude
Jack Parkinson · 2022
Spatial skills are cognitive skills relating to the mental consolidation of spatial structures and operations. Rotating shapes in one’s head, identifying patterns from obscured environments and parsing 3D structures from 2D representations are some tasks which require spatial skills. It is fairly easy to see how spatial skills – literally, skills to do with space – are associated with success in STEM domains: 3D modelling in engineering, understanding molecular structure in chemistry and conceptualising kinematics in physics. This connection is less clear for CS, where concepts of space are more abstract and can be thought unrelated to problems that programmers typically face [5]. And yet, spatial skills are correlated with CS success and training spatial skills improves CS outcomes. We are left asking: “What does space look like in CS?”