| This research was conducted to determine the effect of Selected Instruction in Tactual-Visual Perception and Idea Sketching on the visual imagery ability of industrial arts undergraduate students enrolled in Basic Engineering Graphics at Millersville University, Millersville, Pennsylvania. Tactual-Visual Perception is a visual imagery training technique developed by Lolla, and Idea Sketching has been recommended by McKim for nurturing visual thinking.;A total of 102 subjects were randomly assigned to four groups. Each group received one of four phases of the independent variable--method of visual imagery instruction. Group one was administered only Selected Instruction in Tactual-Visual Perception. Group two received Tactual-Visual Perception plus Idea Sketching. Group three received only Idea Sketching. The control group received no instruction.;Selected Instruction in Tactual-Visual Perception involved two, sixty-minute treatment sessions with an introduction to visual imagery, a tactile tube pretest and posttest, six learning exercises, brief rest periods, and a stimuli shape recognition test. Two- and three-critically dimensioned wooden blocks were used as tactual stimuli and nonverbal pictorial line drawings for test purposes. The primary training technique consisted of touching unseen wooden stimuli of various shapes, forming a mental image of each shape, and then recalling and recognizing the shape when it was presented in drawn form along with the drawings of four distractor shapes. Idea Sketching involved drawing the two- and three-critically dimensioned wooden stimuli used in the above treatment.;The dependent variable--visual imagery ability--was measured by the DAT--Space Relations test. Three hypotheses were used to determine the effect of specific training methods on visual imagery ability. These hypotheses were tested at the .05 level of statistical significance using a single-classification analysis of variance. No significant difference in visual imagery ability was found among those who received Selected Instruction in Tactual-Visual Perception, Idea Sketching, the combination of these two treatments, or no visual imagery instruction. It was concluded that neither Tactual-Visual Perception nor Idea Sketching, as administered in this study, affected visual imagery ability. |
