Baltimore , Maryland
June 25, 2023
June 25, 2023
June 28, 2023
Engineering Design Graphics Division (EDGD) Technical Session 2
Engineering Design Graphics Division (EDGD)
Diversity
10
10.18260/1-2--44574
https://peer.asee.org/44574
208
Savanna Dautle is a graduate student in the Experiential Engineering Education (ExEEd) department at Rowan University, in Glassboro, NJ. She is pursuing her Ph.D. in Engineering Education under the advisement of Dr. Stephanie Farrell. Her research interests include spatial skills in undergraduate engineering students, diversity in engineering, and instrument validation.
Dr. Stephanie Farrell is Professor and Founding Department Head of Experiential Engineering Education at Rowan University (USA). Prior to 2016 she was a faculty member in Chemical Engineering at Rowan.
Literature shows that spatial skills, and in particular, mental rotation skills, are predictors of success in STEM. Students who have strong spatial visualization skills are more likely to demonstrate better academic performance and higher retention rates in STEM. Several instruments are used to measure mental rotation skills, most of which are paper-based; these include the Mental Rotations Test (MRT), Rotated Colour Cube Test (RCCT), and Purdue Spatial Visualization Test: Rotations (PSVT:R). To measure the range of skills typically seen in undergraduate engineering students, the PSVT:R has been historically preferred for its use of a variety of 3-dimensional shapes, which are appropriately challenging to visualize, and for its established reliability and validity. A data-rich computer-based version of the test offers several advantages over the paper-based test; however, its reliability and validity must be established. We present the analysis of the results of a computer-based version of the PSVT:R administered to first-year engineering students at a mid-sized, public university in the United States. We use an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) to determine the number of latent variables being measured by the instrument in our data. We determine the number of latent variables to be one, with good reliability, which is consistent with the paper-based instrument. In future work, we plan to use a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to show evidence of validity of the computer-based PSVT:R.
Dautle, S., & Farrell, S. (2023, June), Using EFA to Determine Factor Structure of a Computer-Based Version of the Purdue Spatial Visualization Test: Rotations (PSVT:R) Paper presented at 2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Baltimore , Maryland. 10.18260/1-2--44574
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