Specific Professional Skills Development for Engineering Studies: Spatial Orientation

Abstract

The spatial skills are an active field of research, especially in the engineering area. Several authors connect high levels of spatial kills with the success in technical careers. One of the components of spatial skills is spatial orientation. Many studies show that providing the appropriate material may develop spatial skills. However, a plan aiming for the development of spatial orientation skills in formal teaching is still missing. This paper presents an innovation in the teaching strategies through a Geographic Information Technologies workshop which aim is development of the spatial orientation. The workshop's study was completed during four academic courses with 248 university engineering students involved. A control group was created with 35 students using conventional teaching methods for determining if the increase in the spatial orientation skill is due to the effect of this workshop. The result shows significant statistical gains over the spatial orientation skill of 19.21 degrees. The results from the control group confirm that students who have not undertaken specific training didn't develop their spatial orientation skill.