Abstract
Considering how spatial thinking connects to Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) outcomes, recent studies have evaluated how spatial interventions impact elementary students’ math learning. While promising, these interventions tend to overlook other factors affecting math learning; perceptions of math abilities, beliefs about math, and math anxiety can also impact math performance. Additionally, perceptions of spatial skill and spatial anxiety impact spatial performance. This study investigated how elementary teachers’ perceptions of spatial thinking connects with math perceptions. Specifically, we focused on teachers’ attitudes and beliefs around three topics: teaching and learning math, spatial abilities, and spatial thinking in mathematics. We found that lower spatial anxiety related to lower anxiety about teaching math, greater alignment between math beliefs and math standards, and greater efficacy in teaching and learning math. Further, a factor analysis showed one factor that connected stereotypical math thinking with both math and spatial anxiety, and another that connected spatial competencies, teaching and learning math, and spatial thinking within math. To further evaluate spatial thinking in math, we introduced a math categorization and verified it using teachers’ ratings of teaching difficulty, visualization helpfulness, and spatial-thinking involvement. Structural equation models revealed that the level of spatial-thinking categorization was the best model of all three of the teachers’ ratings. Overall, results showed numerous connections between teachers’ attitudes and beliefs about mathematics and spatial thinking. Future intervention studies should consider teachers who are spatial and/or math-anxious, and future research should investigate the role of stereotypical thinking in spatial and math anxiety.
Highlights
Decades of research has established that mathematics and spatial thinking are highly connected, and more broadly, spatial thinking is found throughout Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM; Uttal & Cohen, 2012)
We investigate whether more years spent teaching math and daily teaching of math is associated with lower math anxiety, greater math efficacy, and greater alignment with the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics standards (NCTM) standards
Teachers’ spatial competency/anxiety and competency with spatial aspects of math both related to math-teaching anxiety, math beliefs, and efficacy in teaching and learning math
Summary
Decades of research has established that mathematics and spatial thinking are highly connected (see Mix & Cheng, 2012 for a review), and more broadly, spatial thinking is found throughout Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM; Uttal & Cohen, 2012) While this connection is not fully understood in elementary students, recent correlational studies have established the spatial-math connection in young children. Two studies using a battery of spatial and math tasks found two domain-specific factors (i.e., spatial and math) that were highly correlated and consistent across three elementary school-age groups (Mix et al, 2016, 2017) These studies highlight that developing spatial-thinking skills relates to developing math skills. This connection is currently being leveraged by researchers to create and test spatial interventions aimed at improving elementary students’ math learning
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