Abstract

Undergraduate engineering students often struggle in mastering engineering course contents. Although introductory engineering courses were extensively taught, it was deemed not enough, especially in graphic expression since it requires high levels of spatial ability. Moreover, spatial ability is acquired beyond formal learning through leisure training and not explicitly taught. Thus, a digital brain training game i.e. Cubes Spatial Reasoning FREE (CSR) was used in this study in attempt to improve figural spatial ability. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of the use of CSR on figural spatial ability of undergraduate engineering students in terms of mental rotation and spatial orientation. 30 undergraduate engineering students were selected using purposive sampling method. Mental Rotation Test (MRT) was used to measure mental rotation and Spatial Orientation Test (SOT) was used to measure spatial orientation. Findings indicated that CSR significantly improved figural spatial ability in terms of mental rotation and spatial orientation. In conclusion, as indicated in this preliminary study, CSR may be used as a training tool to potentially improve mental rotation and spatial orientation in undergraduate engineering students.

Highlights

  • Engineering students in universities have different levels of spatial ability among peers due to different factors such as sex, background of growth, living area and social environment

  • In order to identify the level of mental rotation in category, the mean score and standard deviation were used with the following formula, since the result was normally distributed: Level of Mental Rotation Test (MRT) = mean ± 1 SD By using this formula, a mean score of higher than upper value means high level

  • The analysis showed that the mobile apps Cubes Spatial Reasoning FREE (CSR) can improve mental rotation of spatial ability

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Summary

Introduction

Engineering students in universities have different levels of spatial ability among peers due to different factors such as sex, background of growth, living area and social environment. These factors were affecting level of spatial abilities with which they affect understanding in the contents of graphic expression. Engineering drawing needs high levels of visualization skills Students need to build basics of spatial visualization ability in order to master engineering drawing concepts (Ali & Hussin, 2016). The complexity of engineering drawing leads to cognitive overload for students with low spatial ability, while those with high spatial ability take advantage of this (Huk, 2006)

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