Spatial task: How are the ability and ways of reasoning of middle school students?

Abstract

Each individual has its uniqueness, including how to reason spatially. This study investigates students' spatial reasoning ability and the ways of reasoning spatially of middle school students in doing spatial tasks. The participants were 126 students in one of the private middle schools in Yogyakarta. Data collecting used multiple-choice tests and test-based interviews. Software NVivo 12 Plus was used to count word frequency. Descriptive statistics was chosen for data analysis. The results showed that the average student's spatial reasoning ability was 41,64. Most students answered correctly on spatial orientation questions, while mainly on spatial visualization were answered incorrectly by students. In addition, the study results also showed that there were similarities in students' ways of reasoning in doing spatial tasks. Ingeneral, the findings showed that students' ways of reasoning in doing spatial tasks on the three aspects of spatial reasoning are by looking, observing, folding, imagining, and rotating the object image in the spatial tasks. Especially for spatial orientation, some students work on spatial tasks by positioning themselves in the object's position referred to inthe task.