A Comparison between the Spatial Intelligence of the Freshman Engineering Students of Sharif University of Technology and Debrecen University

Abstract

The goal of this paper is to compare freshman engineering students' spatial abilities (Spatial Intelligence) at two universities: Sharif University in Tehran and Debrecen University of Hungary, focusing on both their final mathematical exam performance and their gender so as to ascertain whether the students differ significantly in terms of their spatial abilities and/or their problem solving methods. The tests used to measure spatial intelligence performance and mental rotation was the Purdue Spatial Visualization Test (PSVT Branoff). The test results have been statistically evaluated and conclusions formulated. The results show that there was no significant difference between Iranian and Hungarian freshman engineering students in the performance of mental rotation tasks. However, a general gender difference in spatial ability performance was evident among the Hungarian students but not among the Iranians. The results also shed light on spatial rotation problem-solving methods that appear to be largely specific to females.