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Work in Progress: Assessing the Reliability of the Tactile Mental Cutting Test When Sampling Engineering Statics Students’ Spatial Ability

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Conference

2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Portland, Oregon

Publication Date

June 23, 2024

Start Date

June 23, 2024

End Date

July 12, 2024

Conference Session

Educational Research and Methods Division (ERM) Technical Session 18

Tagged Division

Educational Research and Methods Division (ERM)

Tagged Topic

Diversity

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/48342

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Paper Authors

biography

Daniel Kane Utah State University Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0002-0220-9962

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Daniel Kane is a graduate student at Utah State University pursuing a PhD in Engineering Education with a concurrent master’s degree in Civil Engineering. His research interests focus around the study of spatial ability with an emphasis on identifying patterns of spatial strategies and measuring spatial ability in blind and low vision populations.

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Marlee Jacobs Utah State University

biography

Rosemary Yahne Utah State University

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Rosemary Yahne is an undergraduate student at Utah State University. She is pursuing a bachelor's degree in Civil Engineering with a minor in geology. Her research interests include determining spatial ability patterns in engineering students and testing spatial ability in underrepresented populations.

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Wade H. Goodridge Utah State University Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0002-5811-7629

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Wade Goodridge is a tenured Associate Professor in the Department of Engineering Education at Utah State University. His research lies in spatial thinking and ability, curriculum development, and professional development in K-16 engineering teaching.

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Abstract

Spatial ability has been identified as a strong predictor of success in academic and industrial areas of STEM. Work has shown that spatial ability is able to be learned through targeted interventions and that once learned, it can be maintained, improved, and utilized for extended periods of time, making it an important focus of engineering education research. The use of valid and reliable instruments for assessing spatial ability is a crucial element of spatial ability research. A variety of spatial ability instruments have been developed including the Mental Cutting Test (MCT), the Purdue Spatial Visualization Test: Visualization of Rotations (PSVT:R), and the Mental Rotations Test (MRT). Each of these common assessments measure spatial thinking with high validity and reliability, but all depend on the test subject’s visual ability to interpret isometric representations of three-dimensional objects. This paper explores the use of the Tactile Mental Cutting Test (TMCT) among sighted sophomore engineering students with temporarily occluded vision. The TMCT was adapted from the MCT with the intent of measuring spatial thinking in blind and low vision populations and has demonstrated validity and reliability. This work looks to extend the instrument’s use to measure tactilely informed spatial ability in a population which typically relies on vision. Reliability of the TMCT with a sighted population was calculated using Cronbach’s alpha and McDonald’s omega to measure internal consistency. Preliminary results show that the TMCT is sufficiently reliable when used with a sighted population. These results provide growing evidence that argues for the use of the TMCT in studying non-visual components of spatial ability in both blind and sighted populations.

Kane, D., & Jacobs, M., & Yahne, R., & Goodridge, W. H. (2024, June), Work in Progress: Assessing the Reliability of the Tactile Mental Cutting Test When Sampling Engineering Statics Students’ Spatial Ability Paper presented at 2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Portland, Oregon. https://peer.asee.org/48342

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