Spatial Visualization Abilities of Field Dependent/Independent Preservice Teachers

Abstract

Introduction. Spatial skills have been a significant area of research in educational psychology for more years and it has two major dimensions as spatial visualization and spatial orientation. Mathematics educators acknowledge the influence of cognitive styles in the learning of mathematics. There are various recognized cognitive styles in the literature and field dependence/independence is a cognitive style defined as a measure of one’s ability to disembed relative information from irrelevant background and to analyze and cognitively restructure information.Method. The aim of this study was to define the spatial visualization abilities of preservice teachers who were receiving training in different fields and to investigate these abilities in view of different variants. For these purposes, 447 preservice teachers participating in the study were given the Group Embedded Figures Test (GEFT) and Purdue Spatial Visualization Test (PSVT). Preservice teachers were grouped as field dependent/independent according to their learning styles, and their spatial visualization scores were determined. Comparisons between the groups were carried out using multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA).Results. Spatial visualization scores of preservice teachers did not indicate any difference depending on their fields, that is, they showed preservice teachers receiving training in science and social fields had similar spatial visualization scores. Meanwhile, the comparisons made it clear that spatial visualization scores differentiated between females and males and depending on the preservices’ preferences for field dependent/independent learning styles. All three score types (developments, rotations and views) are higher for males than the means belonging to females. The means for field independent preservice teachers were found to be higher than field dependent ones for all three scores types related to spatial visualization test.Discussion and Conclusion. In this study, it was obtained as a result that males had higher spatial visualization abilities than females, and our results are in harmony with the general literature in this field. The accessible scientific studies in the literature indicate a significant relation between field dependency and spatial visualization ability, and the results of our study concur with the literature.