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Background: Despite the numerous positive effects of augmented reality (AR) on learning, previous research has shown ambiguous results regarding the cognitive demand on the learner arising from, for example, the overlay of virtual elements or novel interaction techniques. At the same time, the number of evidence-based guidelines on designing AR is limited or focuses on global effects, primarily relying on media comparison studies, whose validity is criticised. Objective: To guide the meaningful design of learning and training settings, this paper systematically reviews empirical research on AR design and synthesises the findings to develop evidence-based recommendations for designing AR systems considering cognitive load. Methods: We conducted a systematic literature review, initially screening 810 distinct papers and ultimately analysing findings from 27 publications, which report on 29 distinct experimental studies. This selection was based on rigorously defined inclusion and exclusion criteria, adhering to the PRISMA guidelines. Results and Conclusion: The central value of this paper is the aggregation of existing evidence from empirical studies, resulting in 15 recommendations for AR design based on six design dimensions: Spatiality-related, Interaction-related, Contextuality-related, Content-related, Guidance-related and Display Selection. Additionally, with three points for future research, this systematic literature review, first, stresses the need for more empirical evidence and value-added studies. Second, learner characteristics that might influence cognitive load in AR-based learning should be examined. Third, it advocates for the inclusion of measurements beyond the NASA-TLX, and including more physiological measurements (e.g., eye-tracking, EEG) to enhance the applicability of the results for learning and training situations.

Augmented reality (AR) has the potential to enhance visual cognition through virtual object experimentation and practice, while also fostering spatial skills relevant to mathematics. This experimental study was conducted with 86 sixth graders in Eastern China, involving a 3-month AR integrated Mathematics Curriculum (ARiMC), with pre- and post-tests administered. The analysis of spatial skills encompassed four dimensions: graphics recognition, movement, orientation, and measurement. The results revealed that there was no significant improvement in spatial skills with the experience of ARiMC. However, it's noteworthy that ARiMC had a significant impact on the graphics movement dimension, particularly among female students. This finding suggests that AR-enabled learning is a convenient and effective teaching strategy compared to traditional methods, although it didn't yield a broad enhancement in overall spatial skills. It demonstrates the capacity to improve certain abilities, particularly benefiting female students. This underscores the value of AR-enabled learning in mathematics education.

The article studies the holographic projection technology in an innovative music classroom during full-time education. The study addresses the influence of this technology on the effectiveness and efficiency of learning, as well as on the perception and memorisation of educational material by students. It describes an innovative music classroom with equipment for using a 3D Hologram (3DH) for face-to-face lectures. An educational experiment was conducted within a three-month course. The experiment enrolled 111 foreign students in the first year of studying at higher educational institutions in China. The evaluation of the emotional background of the learning environment in the innovative music classroom indicates a positive attitude of students towards educational activities. The activities aroused their interest, admiration and trust; the environment was friendly and joyful. The findings can facilitate the search for innovative solutions to improve pedagogical activity or foster the introduction of holographic innovations into teaching practice.

Effective learning in chemistry education requires students to understand visual representations across multiple conceptual levels. Essential to this process are visuospatial skills which enable students to interpret and manipulate these representations effectively. These abilities allow students to construct mental models that support problem solving and decision making, improving their understanding of complex concepts, for example chemical structures and reactions. The impact of individual differences in mental imagery, such as aphantasia and hyperphantasia, on chemistry students' spatial thinking when engaging with visual representations is not well understood. This paper presents two exploratory studies that examine how the vividness of mental imagery is related to student outcomes in chemistry-related visuospatial problem solving. The first study quantitatively assessed the performance of first-year university students in tasks requiring complex visual and spatial reasoning within a chemistry context. The second study, involving the same participants, used qualitative interview data to investigate their cognitive strategies with a focus on how their mental imagery impacts their problem-solving approaches. Preliminary results suggest that the vividness of students' visual mental imagery did not significantly impact their ability to spatially reason with visual representations in chemistry. Our findings also indicate that students with aphantasia may employ alternative strategies that mitigate their lack of visual mental imagery. This paper highlights the need for further research into the diversity of cognitive mechanisms employed by chemistry students of varying mental imagery capabilities.

Spatial thinking is essential for nurturing spatially literate graduates in tertiary education. However, there is limited research on individual differences in cognitive processes and their impact on spatial problem solving in disciplinary contexts. This study aimed to investigate cognitive processes involved in spatial thinking in geography majors using a web-based geographic information systems (GIS) mapping tool. The results revealed three clusters characterised by distinctive cognitive processes: "spatial analytic," "spatial diagrammatic" and "alternative." Each cluster adopted unique spatial strategies to solve problems with web-based GIS. Notably, "spatial analytic" learners demonstrated the most optimal profile, resulting in high spatial task performance. These findings have implications for maximising students' learning potential in spatial thinking in the tertiary classroom, optimising performance outcomes in spatial problem solving and building intelligent tutoring systems for adaptive learning.

Tangible programming tools have become a mainstream teaching aid in gamification programming learning (GPL) due to their interactivity and ability to enhance novice learners' computational thinking and spatial reasoning skills. However, comparing the relative efficacy of different programming tools that simultaneously support these skills was not adequately explored. This study designed and evaluated three programming tools: the tangible programming tool (TPG), which uses real touchable objects; the block programming tool (BPG), which employs virtual programming blocks and 3D game scenarios; and the paper-and-pencil programming tool (PPG), which uses paper and pen to draw. The study involved 112 seventh-grade students from three natural classes: Class A (TPG, n[subscript 1]=37), Class B (BPG, n[subscript 2]=38), and Class C (PPG, n[subscript 3]=37). These students completed four gamification programming tasks and CT skills, spatial reasoning skills, enjoyment, cognitive load and GPL task list measurements. The results indicated that the tangible programming tool led to lower cognitive load, significant improvement in spatial reasoning skills and better abstraction and problem decomposition skills. The block programming tool provided a more enjoyable experience and facilitated students' algorithm design and efficiency. The paper-and-pencil programming tool was found to be less effective in improving spatial reasoning skills. This study's findings can help programming educators cultivate students' thinking skills and improve their learning experience by effectively selecting the most appropriate programming tools.

Objective: Measurement tools for children's foundational skills provide important insights towards the developmental mechanisms of these domains. This study examines the structure of sensorimotor, visuospatial processing (VP), executive function (EF) skills and their interrelationship. The NEPSY is a widely-used neuropsychological instrument, but while validated at the domain-level through classical test theory approaches, no studies have conducted in-depth item-level analyses on its structural and psychometric properties. Method: This study examined whether the designed structure of NEPSY is empirically supported by fitting unidimensional and multidimensional Item Response Theory models to item response data of early elementary students in the United States. A confirmatory factor analysis was also conducted to examine the factorial structure of the data. Results: Results provide empirical support to the factorial structure of NEPSY, both at the domain level and within the VP sub-domain. The results show that VP and EF are separate constructs and subtests within the VP domain can further be modelled as interrelated but distinct factors -- non-motor and motor-based processing. Conclusion: Our specific results support the theoretical stance that VP consists of multiple component skills that are distinct because they require different neurological processes. This multidimensional NEPSY model shares some structural commonalities with the Cattell-Horn-Carroll model.

The Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning (CTML) suggests humans learn through visual and auditory sensory channels. Haptics represent a third channel within CTML and a missing component for experiential learning. The objective was to measure visual and haptic behaviors during spatial tasks. The haptic abilities test (HAT) quantifies results in several realms, accuracy, time, and strategy. The HAT was completed under three sensory conditions using sight (S), haptics (H), and sight with haptics (SH). Subjects (n = 22, 13 females (F), 20-28 years) completed the MRT (10.6 ± 5.0, mean ± SD) and were classified as high or low spatial abilities scores with respect to mean MRT: high spatial abilities (HSA) (n = 12, 6F, MRT = 13.7 ± 3.0), and low spatial ability (LSA) groups (n = 10, 7F, MRT = 5.6 ± 2.0). Video recordings gaze and hand behaviors were compared between HSA and LSA groups across HAT conditions. The HSA group spent less time fixating on mirrored objects, an erroneous answer option, of HAT compared to the LSA group (11.0 ± 4.7 vs. 17.8 ± 7.3 s, p = 0.020) in S conditions. In haptic conditions, HSA utilized a hand--object interaction strategy characterized as palpation, significantly less than the LSA group (23.2 ± 16.0 vs. 43.1 ± 21.5 percent, p = 0.022). Before this study, it was unclear whether haptic sensory inputs appended to the mental schema models of the CTML. These data suggest that if spatial abilities are challenged, LSA persons both benefit and utilize strategies beyond the classic CTML framework by using their hands as a third input channel. This data suggest haptic behaviors offer a third type of sensory memory resulting in improved cognitive performance.

Learning cardiac morphology largely involves spatial abilities and studies indicate benefits from innovative 3D visualization technologies that speed up and increase the learning output. Studies comparing these teaching tools and their educational output are rare and few studies include complex congenital heart defects. This study compared the effects of 3D prints, mixed reality (MR) viewing of 3D meshes and standard cardiac CT slice images on medical students' understanding of complex congenital heart defect morphology, measuring both objective level of understanding and subjective educational experience. The objective of this study was to compare morphological understanding and user experiences of 3D printed models, MR 3D visualization and axial 2D CT slices, in medical students examining morphological details in complex congenital heart defects. Medical students in the median 4th year of study (range 2nd to 6th) examined three of five different complex congenital heart defects by three different modalities: 3D printed model, MR viewed 3D mesh, and cardiac CT slices, answering a questionnaire on morphology and user experience. Time to complete task, diagnostic accuracy, and user experience data were collected and compared on group level. Task times were similar for all modalities. The percentage of correct answers was higher with MR visualization, which was also the preferred modality overall. Medical students both prefer and better understand the morphology of complex congenital heart disease with 3D models viewed using MR, without spending more time than with 3D prints or 2D CT images.

Extant literature has preliminarily confirmed the potential benefits of holographic projections for educational purposes. Yet, students' experiences of learning by holographic projection have rarely been addressed. The main purpose of this study was therefore to explore students' conceptions of and approaches to learning by holographic projection. A holographic projection system was devised to assist students in learning the concept of lunar phases. This study also investigated the relationships between students' conceptions and approaches, and determined if there were any variations based on students' learning gains. Phenomenographic analysis was adopted to analyze 30 university students from Taiwan, and a multiple-choice conceptual test was conducted to assess their learning achievements. The main findings indicated that students with conceptions of learning by holographic projection as increasing the presence of a scene or mapping 2D images to 3D structures tended to adopt surface approaches, such as only observing the changes presented in the holographic projection, repetitively operating the system functions without intended purposes, or simply following the instruction guidelines to meet the minimal requirements. However, this study unexpectedly found that students who utilized surface approaches had significantly higher learning gains on the conceptual test than their counterparts did.

This study examined the impact of spatial ability on science achievement by distinguishing between domain-general and domain-specific spatial abilities, focusing on their relationship with the conceptual understanding of the apparent path of the sun. Additionally, the mediating effects of domain-specific spatial knowledge on the relationships between spatial ability and science achievement were tested. A mixed-methods design was used. Forty university students participated. Mental rotation and astronomical drawing tests were used to evaluate their general spatial ability and science achievement. The domain-specific spatial knowledge used in solving astronomical drawing tests was ascertained via interviews and analyzed, with results presented as static-type semantic spatial propositions and dynamic-type spatial skills. The results demonstrated an overlap between general spatial ability and domain-specific spatial knowledge, challenging the traditional dichotomy between them. Furthermore, domain-specific spatial knowledge fully mediated the relationship between general spatial ability and science achievement. These findings have significant implications for astronomy education, highlighting the importance of domain-specific spatial competence over general ability in solving domain problems and underscoring the need for explicit instruction in the decoding of semantic spatial information in pictorial representations, which is often overlooked in studies focusing on spatial skills training or the surface characteristics of scientific representations.

The study aims to define the processes of pre-service mathematics teachers in reaching spatial visualisation generalisations within the context of drawing surface nets of solids. Two theories, Polya's problem-solving steps and novice-to-expert problem-solving schemas, were used as reference frameworks to describe the participants' spatial visualisation generalisation processes. The research methodology employed in this study was a qualitative theory-testing case study design, in which hypotheses based on those two theories were generated and tested. The sample consisted of 44 participants who completed low- and high-complexity spatial visualisation drawing tasks and attended task-based interviews. The findings obtained by qualitative data and verified with quantitative data revealed participants' problem-solving processes involved a series of steps, including the creation of a mental representation of the problem situation (comprehending the configuration and the requirements of the task), devising an appropriate strategy to unfold the surface of the solid, implementing the strategy enabling to draw one of the nets of the solid, and finally evaluating the accuracy of the net drawing representing the opened surface of the solid. The participants' three developmental spatial visualisation stages (novice, competent, and expert) were identified based on their spatial visualisation problem-solving performances in low- and high-complexity tasks.

Spatial skills are crucial to STEM disciplines and involve a variety of cognitive processes and skills related to visualising, reasoning and communicating about spatial relations. Particularly in the primary school years, attaining 'spatial literacy' gives children a valuable set of skills and knowledge that can aid them in successful participation in STEM subjects. However, it is poorly understood what constitutes spatial literacy for primary school age children. Furthermore, research into pedagogy for spatial skills is limited, with training interventions often resembling psychometric tests. Therefore, it is pertinent to explore which spatial skills and knowledge are most important for primary school age children to develop and how pedagogy could look to help children to attain spatial literacy. Maker education provides an integrated and design-based approach to learning in which children could practise spatial skills and knowledge by applying it in a creative way. Origami provides a particularly interesting medium to explore these questions as it has previously been used successfully to train psychometrically assessed spatial skills. This paper details a 'research through design' case study of the development of a theoretically informed origami workshop and its implementation in a makerspace during an after-school makerspace programme. The origami workshop and its pedagogical qualities are described and the implementation of the origami workshop in an after-school makerspace is analysed in light of spatial literacy. These findings are discussed and contextualised with insights from the literature. Finally, several recommendations for further research on spatial literacy for primary school age children, specifically in the context of maker education, are made.

Scholars have become increasingly interested in identifying a more effective set of core teaching practices for developing teacher education and professional development programs. Although they have conducted many investigations within this realm over the past two decades, these efforts have focused mainly upon science, language arts, math, and music. The existing body of academic literature contains only a few studies that examine the social studies context, and this deficiency ignores the field of geography. The current study addressed this gap in the literature by exploring the core practices of geographic inquiry. A Delphi method was used to identify the core practices for teaching geographic inquiry. The findings were derived from a three-round Delphi panel survey involving 27 experts in the geography education field, helping to build consensus around a set of core secondary school geography teaching practices. The results revealed that experts considered eight practices to be core for facilitating geographic inquiry: (1) use geographic questions; (2) explain geographic concepts, principles, and processes; (3) select and adapt geographic sources; (4) use geographic/spatial representation and geospatial technology tools; (5) develop geographic reasoning; (6) evaluate sources and employ geographic evidence; (7) construct geographic explanations and predictions; and (8) develop informed-geographic action. These eight core practices for facilitating geographic inquiry do not function separately; rather, they operate simultaneously and in an interconnected manner in which more than one practice works to facilitate inquiry.

Many students have difficulty understanding the concept of lunar phase changes (LPCs) due to spatial ability problems such as perspective-taking (PT) and mental rotation (MR). Therefore, this study aimed to compare brain activity during PT and MR tasks while performing the LPC task to determine the involvement of PT and MR. This study measured brain waves using EEG in 20 participants while solving the 3 tasks. First, the power values in the theta band of all cortical areas showed a significant difference between MR and LPC tasks. Second, in the strategy execution section with a statistically significant difference, the occipital lobe and limbic system were mainly active during the PT task, whereas the frontal lobe was mainly active during the LPC task. Third, for strategy execution, during MR and LPC tasks, the frontal lobe, temporal lobe, and limbic system were all activated to significantly different degrees. Therefore, both PT and MR, particularly PT, are required to solve the LPC task. Moreover, for students who have difficulty learning LPC, it is necessary to recognize the need for spatial ability, such as PT ability, and establish an appropriate teaching strategy.

An Augmented Reality (AR) approach to creating a maths education app is the focus of this research. To turn the 2D floor plan into 3D objects, students will use their mobile devices to scan the cards. Students can have a better understanding of the 3D shape from various angles by interacting with virtual 3D items. Students can gain a deeper understanding of the method of volume computation by utilising the decomposition or combined functions of the Assembler Edu app. This study compares the digital learning results of students who excel in maths with those of students who struggle, and it does so by analysing the students' motivation both before and after using an AR Assembler Edu app. The study analyses the learning impacts and experiences of the AR Assembler Edu App through the use of achievement assessments, questionnaires, and interviews with teachers and students. The results show that students are receptive to the institute's AR maths learning app and that it might pique their interest in studying. Compared to the pre- and post-study results, the learning effects are much more pronounced. Teacher interviews revealed that students' motivation and three-dimensional composition were significantly improved after using this digital learning resource and interactive experience model.

This qualitative study was conducted to investigate the instructional practices employed by Engineering Graphics and Design (EGD) teachers to teach Isometric Drawing (ID). This enquiry was necessitated by the growing concern from subject advisors and teachers about the poor performance of learners in isometric drawing. In an attempt to meet the objectives, this study adopted an interpretivist position to understand the instructional practices employed by teachers in teaching isometric drawing. This study used seven (7) EGD teachers who were conveniently selected, it is worth noting that the sample was influenced by the fact that EGD is a subject that is not common hence not many schools offer it. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews and was analyzed using a thematic analysis. Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) was used as a framework that underpinned this study. Findings from this study indicated that all EGD teachers have the common understanding that ID involves converting 2d orthographic view into a 3d figure. The findings further revealed that teachers rely heavily on models, YouTube videos and AutoCAD to develop learners' spatial ability which is a very important skill. The study recommended that there should be no teacher hired to teach EGD without being fully trained. The study further recommended that future research should be conducted on learners to get their insight on why they are performing poorly in ID.

This research is part of the "Ancient Xuzhou Houses in China: Cultural Memory, Symbol and Process Reconstruction in the Context of Rural Revitalization" project. Traditional houses contain a large amount of cultural value, literacy role, and historical memory. In order to sort out the transfer process more clearly between memory and people, this study set three research objectives. First, spatial memory transmission and literacy role needs to be studied and analyzed. Then, on this basis, we will further study the method of spatial memory transmission and literacy role. Finally, the appropriate medium for spatial memory transmission is analyzed. This study used descriptive analysis to summarize and discuss the results. The results show that spatial memory transmission and literacy is a process of maintaining and transmitting social and cultural values through the use and evolution of architecture and spatial design over time. Symbols in the memory space of residential buildings are containers for storing memories, just like a mobile hard drive that records relevant memory information. Residential buildings and people are like two devices that convey information and communicate through symbols. After comparison, in the dimension of cultural memory, symbols are more social and cultural and are more suitable as a medium for transmitting spatial memory and literacy role under cultural identity. This article explains the relationship between symbols and spatial memory, through spatial memory transmission to describe how common memories are shared and reproduced among collective members through cultural memory, literacy role and symbolic translation. It can transmit cultural and historical memories between different generations and acquires the importance of spatial positioning and environmental interaction in transmitting cultural memory.

The paper describes the results of a study whose main aim was to find the interrelationship between pupils' school grades in Czech language (native), mathematics, and physics and pupils' cognitive predispositions to problem-solving in science and mathematics diagnosed by the Lawson Classroom Test of Scientific Reasoning and the Culture of Problem Solving test. A total of 180 pupils from the Czech Republic aged 14-15 took part in this study. The results show that pupils with better grades in the monitored subjects achieve better results in both tests. It also turns out that there are generally statistically insignificant differences between the results of pupils assessed by grades 1 or 2 and between those assessed by grades 3 or 4. Pupils' performance in the two tests might help to strengthen the objectivization of grading at school. They might also help identify the indicators important for developing problem-solving skills. The research specifically points to the need to develop algebraic thinking, the conception of infinity, spatial imagination, geometric imagination in the plane, proportional reasoning, and the ability to control variables.

The purpose of this study is to determine the spatial thinking ability of high school students using indicators from Sharpe-Huynh model. These indicators include analysis, spatial interaction, scale, representation, comprehensiveness, and application. Furthermore, this study examined the effect of Earthcomm learning on student's spatial thinking ability. This study research employs a quantitative study, utilizing a quasi-experimental design with a non-equivalent control group. The study is conducted among school students in Padang City, West Sumatera Province, Indonesia. The research population consisted of 287 students, divided into eight research groups. Data on students' spatial thinking ability were collected through the Sharpe-Huynh model of spatial thinking ability test. Before further analysis, the data were assessed for normality and homogeneity. The experimental group utilized earth science in the community (Earthcomm) learning model, while the control group employed conventional learning. The research data were analyzed using Mann-Whitney U test. The findings revealed that the spatial thinking ability of high school students ranged from low to moderate. The Earthcomm learning model demonstrated a significant impact in improving spatial thinking skills. The impact of Earthcomm learning on enhancing spatial thinking abilities among high school students is elaborated in the following article.

This study explores how pre-service mathematics teachers' spatial visualisation skills evolved during a Cognitive Load Theory (CLT) based education. The study used the qualitative theory-testing case study method, which guided the identification of participants, the design of technology-supported education, and the data collection and analysis process. The four participants meeting specific criteria were selected as the study sample. A CLT-based education equipped with technology was provided to help participants overcome difficulties in spatial visualisation problems, improve their existing schemas, and build higher-order schemas. Various teaching approaches (e.g., worked examples) were applied to optimise participants' learning in CLT-based education. The study data (e.g., transcripts of interviews) were analysed using the pattern-matching technique, in which the observed patterns were compared with the derived hypotheses from the theoretic models regarding the problem-solving process and novice-expert schemas. The study achieved remarkable results: In CLT-based education, where teaching approaches have an important role, the improvement in their spatial visualisation skills happened as the participants overcame their challenges in problem-solving steps throughout their cyclic problem-solving processes and gained more knowledge and skills. The participants' acquisition of expertise in spatial visualisation skills went through various developmental stages. They strengthened their initial spatial problem-solving schemas by completing the deficiencies in their prior knowledge. They gained practicality in same category tasks and constructed higher-order problem-solving schemas when dealing with high-category tasks by activating their assimilation and adaptation processes.

Learning about the Earth through geoscience education is important in order to make informed decisions about the future of the Earth. The aim of this study is to examine students' conceptual development on geoscience subjects based on inquiry-based learning. 7th grade students participated in this study. The researcher prepared lesson plans and activities connected with the aforementioned subjects in accordance with the inquiry-based learning model. In this study, the "Geoscience Concept Achievement Test (GCAT)" was used in order to obtain quantitative data, and it was applied as a pre-post test and also a retention test. Qualitative data obtained from 8 students, selected from the working group using the maximum sampling method, Science Writing Heuristics (SWH), interviews with the students, worksheets and assessment tests were used as qualitative data collection tools. The geoscience education program was implemented for 8 weeks. The results from quantitative and qualitative data showed that geoscience education positively affected 7th grade students' conceptual understanding of geoscience subjects. The results of the students' GCAT pre-test, post-test, retention test, SWH data, weekly interviews with the students and final interviews, revealed that the learning and teaching process applied in geoscience education positively affected their conceptual development regarding the subject of geoscience.

Geometry and spatial reasoning form the foundations of learning in mathematics. However, geometry is a subject often ignored by curriculum writers and teachers until high school, leading to students lacking in critical skills in geometric reasoning. As the United States moves into a new curriculum epoch, heralding the commencement of the national common core standards (CCS), one could question if CCS in geometry align with the essential understandings children need to be successful geometric thinkers. This paper begins with an examination of the essential understandings of geometric reasoning leading to an interpretation and critique of the elementary geometry CCS. Finally, the instructional implications are discussed, considering the common core progression through what we know about how children learn geometry.

This interdisciplinary, conceptual analysis addresses the nature and benefits of artistic processes in learning and work. While recognizing various forms of artistry, the emphasis is on visual-spatial thinking. The benefits of this kind of thinking in academic and professional activities include the simplification of massively complex writing, improvement of psychological functioning, and the magnification of creative work in various professions, especially in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. Visual-spatial thinking also is a strength that often helps twice-exceptional individuals overcome their learning difficulties. Several thinking and learning strategies are explored, including visual data animation, concept cartooning, visual metaphor, and musical translation of written material. Some ways that visual-spatial thinking can help overcome the problems generated by dogmatic school reform also are scrutinized.

This study investigates the way a kindergarten teacher implemented a three-stage project to support children's map understanding. The project, the Map and Play, was designed to help children understand the relationship between reality and its abstract representation. The guided play was adopted as the pedagogical approach because it empowers children to make independent decisions, encourages critical thinking, and offers opportunities for exploration. At the same time, adults take part in purposeful activities alongside the children. The research employed an ethnographic methodology involving classroom observations, video recordings, and interviews. Content analysis was used to explore the data sources. The results illustrated the stages taken to introduce children to the idea of map considering scientific research about how to foster map understanding. The data displays occasional mistakes made by the teacher, offering valuable insights into the dynamics of classrooms where similar activities might be introduced. The MPP was a promising experience for kindergarten children in enhancing their map reasoning and use of spatial language. Still, there is a need for teacher training to guide this complex learning process effectively.

This study investigated the effects of 3D model building activities with block codes on students' spatial thinking and computational thinking skills. The study group consists of 5th grade students in a secondary school in the Central Anatolia region of Turkey. For the study, a pretestposttest control group was utilized within the experimental design. A total of 66 students participated, 23 in the experimental group and 43 in the control group. While the activities prepared on the Tinkercad platform were applied in the experimental group, the courses were taught using the traditional teaching method in the control group. The study covers a period of three-weeks in the course information technologies and software. The study used the computational thinking levels scale and spatial thinking test scales as data collection instruments. The data was analyzed using both descriptive statistics and independent samples t-tests. Based on the study findings, there were no significant differences observed in the levels of computational thinking skills levels and spatial thinking test scores between the experimental and control groups.

This study aims to compare the efficacy of simultaneous prompting presented via tablets and visual cards in the instruction of spatial concepts to students with intellectual disabilities. A mobile learning software was developed within portable devices by using simultaneous prompting method to teach spatial concepts. The adapted alternating treatments design which is one of the single-subject research methods was used in the study. The dependent variables of the research are left-right, near-far, up-down concepts and independent variables are simultaneous prompting presented with tablet and simultaneous prompting presented with visual cards. A total of 3 students, 1 girl and 2 boys, studying at a private special education school participated in this research. Teaching sessions were held in an individual teaching arrangement. Results were analyzed by graphical analysis. According to the results of the research, it was concluded that there are different levels of effectiveness between teaching with simultaneous prompting presented with tablets and visual cards. It has been found that simultaneous prompting presented with tablets is more efficient than teaching with simultaneous prompting presented with visual cards. Two of the participants were found to have retained the concepts after 1, 3, and 5 weeks.

Augmented Reality (AR) has emerged in our educational paradigm as a new tool to accelerate change in the teaching and learning process. This technology can improve students' visualisation skills, which helps them understand abstract concepts, especially in Chemistry. Furthermore, visualisation skills help improve students' critical thinking. This study was conducted with 16 secondary students. Before and after the intervention, students were required to complete a Purdue Spatial Visualisation Test to measure their visualisation skills. During four weeks of intervention, students explored the content using a mobile augmented reality application for learning chemical bonds (called CBOND) and completed critical thinking tasks each week. This study employed data mining using a decision tree to predict the path to improving students' visualisation and critical thinking skills in learning chemical bonds. The results revealed that CBOND had a significant effect on students' visualisation and critical thinking development. Therefore, this study proved that augmented reality technology could help students to visualise abstract concepts, especially in Chemistry, and in turn, foster their higher level of critical thinking.

A hyper-standardized and alarmist educational climate in the U.S. propagates deficit discourses about students and creates a roadblock for teachers seeking to center their students' lives through critical and multicultural pedagogies. Scholars have called for attention to mapping as a pedagogical tool to unearth and push back against sociospatial injustice. In line with this, I offer the tool of "critical geospatial mapping" and provide two examples of how its application allowed preservice and in-service teachers to see the previously unseen strengths and resiliencies of historically-marginalized and multicultural communities. This allowed them to critique and reframe deficit narratives.

The use of navigation applications changed the way people find their way in an unfamiliar environment. A combination of maps, images and textual route instructions shown (or with audio) on one screen guides the user to the destination but may sometimes be overwhelming. This article investigated the spatial knowledge participants acquired after being presented with different types of route instructions, human and computer-generated, in an online wayfinding task using Google Streetview (without the 2D map) of an unfamiliar environment. The results showed a significant difference in the wayfinding performance for deviations from computer-generated instructions, whilst there was no difference in the time spent and the scene recall. Sketch maps revealed both route-like and survey-like characteristics. But most sketch maps are characterised by high route-likeness. Furthermore, this study showed a significant effect of the environmental layout on the participant's performance based on deviations incurred during wayfinding. The results of this study have implications for improving navigation system instructions and design as well as for learning with geospatial technologies.

The goals of the current study were: 1) to modify and expand an existing spatial mathematical language coding system to include quantitative mathematical language terms and 2) to examine the extent to which preschool-aged children used spatial and quantitative mathematical language during a block play intervention. Participants included 24 preschool-aged children (Age M = 57.35 months) who were assigned to a block play intervention. Children participated in up to 14 sessions of 15-to-20-minute block play across seven weeks. Results demonstrated that spatial mathematical language terms were used with a higher raw frequency than quantitative mathematical language terms during the intervention sessions. However, once weighted frequencies were calculated to account for the number of codes in each category, spatial language was only used slightly more than quantitative language during block play. Similar patterns emerged between domains within the spatial and quantitative language categories. These findings suggest that both quantitative and spatial mathematical language usage should be evaluated when considering whether child activities can improve mathematical learning and spatial performance. Further, accounting for the number of codes within categories provided a more representative presentation of how mathematical language was used versus solely utilizing raw word counts. Implications for future research are discussed.

Magnitude information, for instance, regarding weight, distance, or velocity, is crucial for planning goal-directed interactions. Accordingly, magnitude information, including numerical magnitude, can affect actions: Responses to small numbers are faster with the left hand than the right and vice versa (hand-based SNARC effect). Previous experiments found an influence of effector placements on the SNARC effect but also an influence of the mere distance between effectors and numbers. This indicates a sensorimotor grounding of space-number processing. In the current study, we investigated this grounding by probing the SNARC effect close to and far from the hands. We used a magnitude comparison task with a fixed standard of 5 (smaller numbers 1, 2, 3, 4; larger numbers 6, 7, 8, 9) and a sagittal response arrangement to measure hand-based and sagittal SNARC effects for digits presented at different sagittal distances to the hands, i.e., in peripersonal and extrapersonal space. A significant sagittal SNARC effect was found, with the largest effect size in extrapersonal space. Meanwhile, the hand-based SNARC effect appeared only descriptively, with the largest effect size between the hands, i.e., in peripersonal space. Additionally, a purely spatial congruency effect surfaced, prioritizing responses with the hand closer to the number. Together, these results emphasize that responses in simple decision-making tasks can be influenced interactively by a multitude of task-relevant axes and relative spatial locations, including effector placement and stimulus placement, as well as number magnitude.

A growing diversity of classroom designs, broadly labeled as active learning classrooms, is a rising development across higher education institutions. Along with the construction of these new spaces, stakeholders have developed new vocabularies and concepts for articulating and identifying the impact of new classroom designs for teaching and learning. As new language evolves and ways of thinking about classroom space evolve along with new designs, there has yet to emerge an explicit conceptual framework of the nature of the learning spaces that holistically addresses the cultural, contextual, communicative, and interactional experiences of the faculty. The aim of the present study was to investigate spatial understandings of faculty members in the context of a professional development program in an attempt to identify the social construction of space in active learning classrooms. We conducted a content analysis of 25 reflective portfolios written between 2018 and 2020. Grounding on the Henri Lefebvre's Spatial Triad (1991), we found that faculty members used three types of space as describing their spatial experiences in classrooms: (1) perceived space, (2) conceived space, and (3) experienced space. The results were discussed in terms of a cultivated space approach to support faculty in developing pedagogical agility across various learning environments.

Insights on students' own authentic design practices--nascent design practices without much adult guidance--are crucial to informing responsive facilitation of engineering design tasks. This study unpacks how elementary students interpret teacher given information about a design task, and interact with each other and given resources, to traverse a design trajectory with limited adult intervention. We present a qualitative case study of the trajectory of a 3rd grade student team working to design a solution in response to an engineering challenge, with minimum adult intervention. The design space lens, which emerges from studies of nonlinear, fluid nature of professionals' design trajectories, guides our analysis of elementary students' design trajectory. The use of design space reveals characteristics of student navigation as dictated by their interpretation of given information, and by their observation and analysis of how their solution behaves and performs. The findings show students' proactive and autonomous selection of design practices driven by the goal of solving the problem while navigating criteria and constraints. The study highlight a sophisticated trajectory that elementary students can traverse when given the autonomy. Awareness of these nascent strengths has implications for helping educators to responsively plan and facilitate design tasks.

Purpose: One challenge to the design and delivery of effective vocabulary intervention is the selection of vocabulary targets. The purpose of this study was to examine the relation of word characteristics to vocabulary learning from explicit vocabulary intervention. Method: This study was a secondary analysis of data from two recent efficacy studies of an explicit vocabulary intervention delivered to preschool children ("Story Friends"). Taught vocabulary words were coded for concreteness, imageability, and shape using the perceptual accessibility continuum. Results: Multilevel modeling indicated that perceptual accessibility predicted vocabulary learning. Of the perceptual accessibility components, concreteness and imageability contributed significantly to the model, but shape did not. Higher vocabulary learning was observed for words rated more perceptually accessible. Conclusions: Preschool children's vocabulary learning was predicted by perceptual accessibility characteristics of taught words. Findings contribute to the body of evidence to guide the selection and sequencing of vocabulary targets for effective vocabulary intervention.

This study aimed to juxtapose the impacts of the Problem-Based Learning (PBL) methodology implemented within a three-dimensional (3D) virtual environment against PBL in a conventional face-to-face setting, along with a control group, on students' learning performance, conceptual comprehension, and spatial aptitude. The investigation concentrated on the structure of matter within a seventh-grade science curriculum, encompassing a cohort of 79 students enrolled in the course. The study was conducted under a mixed methods experimental design and comprised three distinct groups: two experimental groups (E1; E2) and one control group (C). The instructional intervention in the E1 group involved utilizing a 3D virtual environment grounded in the problem-based learning method, whereas the E2 group underwent face-to-face instruction employing worksheets derived from problem-based learning. In contrast, the control group received traditional direct instruction from the science teacher through lectures, demonstrations, and question-and-answer sessions, all focusing on the same topic. Pretests and posttests were administered to the participants before and after the experimental interventions, assessing conceptual understanding, spatial visualization, and mental rotation. Additionally, learning tasks completed by the E1 and E2 groups were evaluated using rubrics to assess learning performance. Subsequent to the post-test, individual semi-structured interviews were conducted with randomly selected students from the E1 group. The results indicated that instruction within the problem-based 3D virtual environment significantly enhanced students' learning performance, conceptual understanding, spatial visualization, and mental rotation skills compared to the other instructional conditions.

Eye-tracking procedures generate copious process data that could be valuable in establishing the response processes component of modern validity theory. However, there is a lack of tools for assessing and visualizing response processes using process data such as eye-tracking fixation sequences, especially those suitable for young children. This study, which explored student responses to a spatial reasoning task, employed eye tracking and social network analysis to model, examine, and visualize students' visual transition patterns while solving spatial problems to begin to elucidate these processes. Fifty students in Grades 2-8 completed a spatial reasoning task as eye movements were recorded. Areas of interest (AoIs) were defined within the task for each spatial reasoning question. Transition networks between AoIs were constructed and analyzed using selected network measures. Results revealed shared transition sequences across students as well as strategic differences between high and low performers. High performers demonstrated more integrated transitions between AoIs, while low performers considered information more in isolation. Additionally, age and the interaction of age and performance did not significantly impact these measures. The study demonstrates a novel modeling approach for investigating visual processing and provides initial evidence that high-performing students more deeply engage with visual information in solving these types of questions.

Digital model platforms and applications are common in anatomy education and continue to grow in number, which suggests that educators and students find use for these tools despite the lack of widely accepted best practices. Consequently, it is a challenge for educators to mindfully integrate digital models into curriculum. This short-term, longitudinal study investigated the effects of integrating a monoscopic digital model as a teaching tool during lectures on reproductive and endocrine anatomy as an intervention in a community college human anatomy and physiology course. Student use and perceptions of digital models were analyzed for correlation with the nature of the course content and the intervention (n = 92). Academic content significantly affected self-reported student use (p < 0.001) as well as student perceived usefulness of the model (p = 0.02). These findings support the conjecture that digital anatomy models may be better for achieving certain specific learning goals opposed to all learning goals. Integration of digital models as an instructional method did not consistently influence student behavior but it made a difference in participant ability to recognize this technology outside of the lecture. Overall, participants had a positive perception of digital models, although they were not perceived as more important than all other curricular resources. Inclusion of monoscopic digital models for teaching anatomy should be considered by educators since teaching with digital models can demonstrate strengths and weaknesses for students within the context the of learning objectives, assisting students to make more informed decisions about effective learning tools.

In this qualitative case study, we investigated the role of an advanced math curriculum with language scaffolding on the development of geometric and visual-spatial reasoning skills in young mathematically promising English learners (MPELs). Specifically, we examined the effects of providing MPELs with challenging and supportive math curriculum to facilitate the development of mathematical potential through a geometry unit. Twenty-one MPELs were randomly assigned to either an intervention or a comparison class. The data sources included audio recordings of class sessions, documents of math tasks, field notes, and test scores. Findings revealed that in the intervention class, tasks required more cognitive demands, and students were encouraged to contribute to classroom discourse more than in the comparison class. MPELs in the intervention class demonstrated greater gains in geometric reasoning compared to their peers in the comparison class. These findings underscore the point that challenging and supportive curricula can effectively nurture the mathematical potential of underrepresented gifted students.

In the studio, there are routines and rituals to be observed. One of those is making gesso. The quantities change each time and the ingredients vary, but the mechanical process remains the same: soak rabbit skin glue for 3 hours, double burner melt the glue, sieve in champagne chalk whiting, stir slowly, and tap the sides to remove air bubbles. Brush on first layer. Dry. Sand. Repeat × 10. Out of repetition each new territory is unique with its own lumps, drips and curves on a straight edge board. Making gesso is a kind of ritornello. Drawing on Deleuze and Guattari, a ritornello is a repetition leading to a transformation; it is a methodical kind of time that is rhythmic, local and spatiotemporal. It contravenes the idea of a universal, overarching time to consider heterogeneous, plural experiences of time in the art classroom. Ritornellos exist in both the studio and the art classroom, but in the art classroom, they often sediment into endless repetitions without rupture: tonal scales, colour wheels, drawing grids and pastiche. We apply the concept of ritornello to pedagogy in Secondary Art and Design education to think about school art orthodoxies and how they can be reterritorialised.

This study assessed the effectiveness of a spatialized mathematics intervention on the mathematical performance and spatial visualization skills of students from an underprivileged Indonesian community. Grade 8 students (N = 407) were assigned to one of twelve experimental classes, receiving the spatial mathematics intervention, or one of seven control classes, continuing with the standard mathematics curriculum. Prior to and following the intervention, a pre-test and post-test design was administered. The data were analyzed using Analysis of Covariance to ascertain the effect of the intervention. Results revealed that the students in the experimental group exhibited significant improvements in spatial visualization skills and mathematics performance (including both spatial and non-spatial competencies), compared to the control group. Importantly, the findings provide evidence that the transfer effects of the spatialized curriculum occur differentially for students of varying ability levels. The findings highlight the importance of spatial intervention in enhancing mathematics performance and spatial visualization skills. The study suggests potential avenues for a paradigm shift in mathematics education that recognizes and embraces the profound influence of spatial thinking.

Community schools are schools which recognize that children are apart of communities, and therefore, attempt to directly address the outside of school factors that impact student learning by offering services to students, their families, and the broader community through a variety of partnerships with governmental and community-based organizations. Based on empirical research, this paper argues that while the community schools provide a much-needed approach to educating students beyond their academic needs, the schools work within deeply-rooted racist systems and structures. Seen through the lens of racial capitalism, in particular, the work of community schools may be quite limited in what they can accomplish. Using census data from the Baltimore Neighborhood Indicators Alliance (BNIA) combined with GIS mapping, this paper investigated the racially segregated contexts in which community schools operated in Baltimore. In so doing, the paper argues that the potential of community schools is circumscribed by the spatial injustice that the neighborhoods experience.

Spatial perspective-taking (SPT) ability positively influences performance in STEM fields. While limited research studies have been done with school students, they have yielded inconclusive findings and, hence, here we report findings from our study with an augmented reality (AR) enhanced learning environment (ARELE), GeoSolvAR, on middle-school students' SPT ability. We conducted a sequential explanatory mixed-method study with 90 students to test GeoSolvAR's twin features of augmented systems and inquiry-based activities. The study had one experimental (n = 30) and two control groups (n = 30 × 2), where students were individually administered an online pre- and posttest to measure their SPT ability. The experimental group worked with both the features of GeoSolvAR, while the control group worked with only the AR feature or had no intervention. Our findings reveal that the experimental group showed significant improvement in SPT ability while students in the control groups showed non-significant improvement or no change. Furthermore, we found that all experimental group students used certain body movements and imagined shifts in spatial positions while solving the activity questions. Thus, we conjecture that GeoSolvAR affords thinking and imagining with the body which makes it a potent tool for improving students' SPT ability.

The present study aimed to examine whether Mandarin-speaking children on the autism spectrum showed differences in comprehending spatial demonstratives ("this" and "that", and "here" and "there"), as compared to typically developing (TD) children. Another aim of this study was to investigate the roles of theory of mind (ToM) and executive functions (EF) in the comprehension of spatial demonstratives. Twenty-seven autistic children (mean age 6.86) and 27 receptive-vocabulary-matched TD children (mean age 5.82) were recruited. Demonstrative comprehension was assessed based on participants' ability to place objects in certain locations according to experimenters' instructions which involved these demonstratives in three different conditions (same-, opposite-, and spectator-perspective conditions). Four false-belief tasks were administered to measure ToM, and the word-span task and the dimensional change card sort task were used to measure two subcomponents of EF -- working memory and mental flexibility -- respectively. Children on the autism spectrum were found to score below TD children in the comprehension of spatial demonstratives. In addition, the results showed that ToM and working memory were conducive to the correct interpretation of spatial demonstratives. The two cognitive abilities mutually influenced their respective roles in spatial demonstrative comprehension in the three different conditions. The findings suggest that the comprehension of spatial demonstratives comprehension is an area of need in Mandarin-speaking children on the autism spectrum, and it might be linked to their differences in cognitive abilities.

Spatial thinking is ubiquitous in design. Design education across all age groups encompasses a range of spatially challenging activities, such as forming and modifying mental representations of ideas, and visualizing the scenarios of design prototypes being used. While extensive research has examined the cognitive processes of spatial thinking and their relationships to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics learning, there remains a knowledge gap regarding the specific spatial thinking processes needed for open-ended problems, which may differ from those assessed in close-ended, analytical spatial tasks. To address this gap, we used educational design-based research to develop a nature-inspired, design-by-analogy project and investigate the spatial thinking processes of young, novice designers. 16 children from an international school in the Netherlands participated in this five-week design project. Multimodal evidence from classroom recordings and children's design works were triangulated to offer insight into the key spatial thinking processes involved in their creation of nature-inspired, analogy-based design prototypes. Our results revealed spatial thinking processes that might not align with those assessed in conventional spatial tests and may be unique to design or open-ended problem-solving. These processes include abstracting spatial features to infer form-function relationships, retrieving a range of relevant visual information from memory, developing multiple possible analogical matches based on spatial features and relationships, elaborating and iterating on the design concepts and representations to make creative and suitable solutions for the design challenge, as well as visualizing design prototypes in practical usage scenarios. By highlighting the nuanced differences between spatial thinking in open-ended, divergent thinking tasks and conventional spatial tasks that demand single correct solutions, our research contributes to a deeper understanding of how children utilize spatial thinking in design and open-ended problem-solving contexts. Furthermore, this case study offers practical implications for scaffolding children's analogical reasoning and nurturing their spatial thinking in design education.

Visual Reproduction is a condition to measure Visual Spatial Memory as one of the cognitive domains commonly used to measure visuo-spatial memory. Geometric figures serve as stimulus material, and probands have to reproduce the figures from memory through a hand drawing. The scoring of the drawing has subjective elements. This study aims to evaluate the scoring criteria for the Figural Reproduction Test (FRT), part of the Indonesian Neuropsychological Test Battery, and to develop and evaluate an automated scoring system based on computer vision technology (FRT-CVAS). Scoring evaluation conducted by Cohen Kappa analysis, accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity. The analyzes of the three criteria of the manual confirmed a subjective element in the scoring of the shape of triangles by a moderate (0.74) inter-rater agreement; this agreement could be improved to 0.84 by a slight modification of its criteria. FRT-CVAS, based on computer vision's identification of the different elements of the hand drawing, was developed and trained using 290 drawings. The system was additionally tested by comparing its scoring with the scoring of two independent raters on 120 drawings from a second data set. FRT-CVAS recognized all elements, and its comparison between human raters showed a high accuracy and sensitivity (minimally 0.91), while the specificity was 0.80 for one of the three criteria. FRT-CVAS offers a highly standardized, consistent, precise, and objective output from the first card in the FRT. This approach is advantageous to data-hungry alternatives such as deep learning when applied to the automated scoring of hand drawings with relatively little data available for training.

Industrial buildings that conserve their authentic identities and provide cultural sustainability also appeal to the spatial perceptions of users through their old and new usage forms. It is thought that every generation will have different timeframes and experiencing forms in the spaces they are in, based on their own needs, and this is believed to reflect on their spatial perceptions. Accordingly, this study aims to reveal the effect of different generations' characteristics on their perception of educational buildings converted from industrial buildings and to reflect users' reactions to the relevant spaces. In this study, the evolving spatial perceptions regarding Abdullah Gül University Sümer Campus, which has been converted as an educational facility from Sümerbank Fabric Factory, were evaluated through the members of the Generation X and Z. This study which employed qualitative data collection and assessment methods was conducted as a particular case study. Furthermore, this study contained the holistic assessment of the physical, functional and psychological aspects of the re-functionalized campus considering the fact that these spaces whose functions were converted to be educational would include differences based on spatial perceptions. The results of this study indicated that Sümer Campus was considered by the Generation X as a location combining the old texture with the new, while the Generation Z assessed the campus as an esthetic formation where the old and new coexisted with contrasts.

Background: The importance of spatial abilities for individuals' success in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) domains has been well established. Researchers have also emphasized the need to train engineering students in spatial ability. Although virtual reality (VR) offers prospects for training spatial abilities, research on the design of VR training environments remains incomplete. Purpose: This review aimed to reveal the link between individuals' interactions in a VR environment and their spatial abilities and provide guidance for future research and the design of training settings. We also aimed to support students by aligning their interactions with individuals' spatial abilities or by using interactive VR to foster these abilities to create more equal opportunities in the field of engineering. Method: A systematic review of existing literature was conducted to categorize and discuss recent findings. Results: The study found that the reviewed literature (i) mainly considered mental rotation; (ii) showed advantages for high-spatial-ability learners and disadvantages for low-spatial-ability learners when they use interactive VR; (iii) indicated training possibilities, especially for low-spatial-ability learners, when they use interactive VR; and (iv) showed changes in not only interaction but also visualization parameters between experimental and control groups. Conclusion: Interactive VR can be used to develop spatial abilities, particularly in low-ability learners. However, it can also hinder these learners and favor high-ability learners. Further research focusing on the interactive part of VR and the role of spatial ability is required to support design choices.

Contribution: This research provides insights into the applications of virtual reality (VR) in learning spatial reasoning, which could be utilized and developed in educational frameworks and settings, especially in science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics (STEAM), and other aspects. Background: Spatial reasoning and VR are essential for an effective STEAM strategy. Thus, professionals must constantly research to help learners explore spatial-reasoning perception. This research's objective is to explore how VR can enhance spatial-reasoning consent of learning, specifically toward mental rotation and spatial visualization skills. Research Question: How does VR help learners embrace spatial-reasoning perception and experiences? Methodology: This study proposes a two-phase comparison experiment to explore the potential improvement of learning spatial-reasoning perception toward spatial abilities and experience in VR. In the first phase, participants experienced conventional hand drawing techniques before moving to the VR environment with the "Gravity Sketch" application, followed by a perceptional assessment in motivated strategies for learning questionnaire (MSLQ) and immersive evaluation with immersive tendency questionnaire (ITQ). In the second phase, participants are invited to conduct the conventional drawing session again, followed by interviews to gain further insights. A galvanic skin response (GSR) device is attached to collect reflection patterns during the whole experiment. Findings: The results support the hypotheses and reveal that VR can help to improve the learning experience and perception of spatial reasoning. Nevertheless, some limitations have been found, such as the small sample size of participants and the need to consider the level of complexity as a future concern.