The Relationship Between Spatial Skills And Mathematics Achievement Of 6-8-year-old Children

Spatial ability is a very basic aspect of human cognitive ability.It is the ability to generate,extract,maintain and manipulate visual spatial information.Spatial information concerns shapes,locations,paths,relations among entities and relations between entities and frames of reference.This information is represented in human cognition and can be mentally transformed to aid in manipulating,constructing,and navigating the physical world.The dimensionality of spatial thought has been the subject of controversy for some time.Recently,a classification system that grows out of linguistic,cognitive,and neuroscientific investigation was proposed.The system makes use of two fundamental distinctions.The first is between intrinsic and extrinsic information.Intrinsic information is what one typically thinks about when defining an object.Extrinsic information refers to the relation among objects in a group,relative to on another or to an overall framework.And the second is between static and dynamic tasks.Objects could be fold,rotated and moved.What's more,movement changes an object's position with regard to other objects and overall spatial frameworks.According to this two dimensions,researchers yielded a 2 × 2 classification of spatial skills.That is intrinsic-static,intrinsic-dynamic,extrinsic-static and extrinsic-dynamic.However,this classification was still not proved by any empirical research.There's no doubt that spatial skill has a essential significance in our daily life.More importantly,spatial skill are closely related to our future achievements in science,technology,engineering and mathematics(STEM).In consideration of the importance of STEM to our society,it is urgent to explore the relationship between early spatial skills and STEM,as well as to find ways to improve spatial skills.So that,we could enhance higher achievement of STEM.Obviously,in childhood,we have much connect with mathematics.Therefore,the relationship between spatial skills and mathematics plays a key role.Prior research find the relationship between spatial skills and mathematics.Children and adults who perform better on spatial tasks also perform better on tests of mathematical ability.However,single spatial task or simply were used in those researches.Theyignore that spatial skill has different aspect.We could not explore the cognition mechanism form those ambiguous researches.Visuospatial working memory provides possibilities for the development of spatial skills.Meanwhile,it has positive influence on mathematics achievement.in consideration of above reasons,it is reasonable to assume that visuosptial working memory has a mediation effect between spatial skills and mathematics.Currently,it is also crucial to find out whether we can improve our mathematical achievements and promote the development of STEM in the future by improving our spatial ability.In the past,the materials used in training research are single,not accessible,and these research have few instructional significance in education.The activities related to spatial toys have a positive predictive effect on spatial ability.Therefore,carrying out a series of curriculum with abundant spatial toys may have a positive effect on spatial ability and mathematical achievement.In the study 1,in order to test the above methods of dividing spatial skills,eight tasks of spatial skills with different components were selected.73 first-grade children consist of our subjects,with an average age of 6.92 years.The results of cluster analysis showed that spatial ability could be divided into two categories.The classification method was consistent with the internal-external dimension.Similarly,the results of confirmatory factor analysis also supported the classification of either internal-external dimension or dynamic-static dimension,but the four-component classification could not be fitted.In the study 2,we aimed at exploring the relationship between different components of spatial skills and mathematical achievement,and discussing whether visuospatial working memory could explain the correlation between them.The subjects were consistent with the study 1.The results showed that intrinsic-dynamic spatial ability was related to mathematical achievement,and could also significantly predict mathematical achievement.At the same time,visuospatial working memory could explain the influence of block design on mathematical achievement,but it could not explain the influence of mental rotation on mathematical achievement.This indicated that there was a close relationship between spatial skills and mathematical achievement,and this relationship could be explained by cognitive mechanism.In the study 3,we designed a pre-test and post-test experiment.The purpose was to explore the promotion effect of spatial activity curriculum on spatial ability itself and its transfer effect on mathematical achievement.The subjects were consistent with the study 1.The results showed that the intrinsic-dynamic and extrinsic-dynamic spatial skills were promoted through the curriculum,while the transfer effects of other spatial components and mathematical achievements were not observed.In summary,firstly,although the rationality of the division of spatial skills is not directly proved in study 1,it also supports the intrinsic-extrinsic and static-dynamic dimensions.It can be explained by the age range and sample size of the subjects,which points out the direction of future research.Secondly,the second study not only confirms the relationship between intrinsic-dynamic spatial ability and mathematical achievement,but also explores the cognitive mechanism,which find visuospatial working memory plays a crucial roles.Finally,the training curriculum only promotes the intrinsic-dynamic and extrinsic-dynamic spatial skills.However,it has no significant improvement on children's mathematical achievement.It also suggests that spatial ability itself has a strong plasticity,and its important role in the development of STEM may not need mathematical achievement as a mediating support.In general,our study not only enriches the empirical content of relevant research,but also points out the direction of research about spatial ability and mathematical achievements in the future.In addition,it tells us that courses,the enrichment and available of training activities are particularly important in similar training.