The effects of Google Sketchup based geometry activities and projects on spatial visualization ability of student mathematics teachers

Abstract

Spatial visualization ability which refers to the ability to manipulate, rotate, change the position in mind of an object depicted as a picture has big importance in many disciplines such as geometry education. In order to improve this ability, it was thought that Google SketchUp, a 3D dynamic sketching software that are usually used for designing 3D building models, can be applied to geometry education. Hence the purpose of this study is to determine effects of SketchUp based geometry activities and projects on spatial visualization ability of student mathematics teachers. The model of this experimental research is pretest-posttest design with control group. In instruction of experimental group, problem based activities being related to solid objects were solved and a project was designed in SketchUp environment. In order to obtain data, Santa Barbara Solid Test which is related to identify cross sections that are 2D slices of 3D objects, was used. While no significance difference was detected between pretest scores of two groups, that there was a significant difference between two groups in favor of experimental group was seen.