Spatial ability differences between students with a math learning disability and their other normal colleagues

Amr Shawky,Guenter Maresch,Ehab Elbiblawy

doi:10.1108/jhass-01-2020-0016

Amr Shawky, Guenter Maresch + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1108/jhass-01-2020-0016

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Abstract

Purpose This study aims to investigate the differences in spatial ability between students with a math learning disability and their normal peers. Design/methodology/approach To investigate these differences two groups, (60 students with a math learning disability) and (60 normal students) from fifth grade with a mean age (10.6 years) were administered with spatial ability test along with an IQ test. Students with a math learning disability were chosen using measures of the following: math learning disability questionnaire developed from learning disability evaluation scale – renormed second edition (LDES-R2) (McCarney and Arthaud, 2007) and the Quick Neurological Screening Test (Mutti et al., 2012), in addition to their marks in formal math tests in school. Findings Comparison between the two groups in four aspects of spatial ability resulted in obvious differences in each aspect of spatial ability (spatial relations, mental rotation, spatial visualization and spatial orientation); these differences were clear, especially in mental rotation and spatial visualization. Originality/value This paper contributes to gain more insights into the characteristics of pupils with a math learning disability, the nature of spatial abilities and its effect on a math learning disability. Moreover, the results suggest spatial ability to be an important diagnose factor to distinguish and identify students with a math learning disability, and that spatial ability is strongly relevant to math achievement. The results have significant implications for success in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics domain.

Highlights

Since the turn of the 20th century, researchers have increasingly been convinced that intelligence is not just one dimensional
As predicted spatial ability, differences were found in every aspect of the spatial ability test favor between normal math learning students and students with a math learning disability
The findings of this study confirm that deficit in spatial ability is a significant characteristic that distinguishes students with a math learning disability from normal students

Summary

Introduction

Since the turn of the 20th century, researchers have increasingly been convinced that intelligence is not just one dimensional. The most common method for studying spatial ability was the factor analysis, which is a “statistical technique that examines the patterns of correlations among a large number of variables” (Hegarty and Waller, 2005; Gilligan et al, 2018). This technique tries to observe many variables, has the goal to find out common features among them and wants to reduce the number of constructs called factors. For many decades of the 20th century spatial ability researchers, on the one hand, were searching for markers for factors and used a large number of tests with markers to identify underlying factors for spatial abilities and their relations (Carroll, 1993; Linn and Petersen, 1985; Lohman, 1988; Maier, 1998)

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