Individual differences in Spatial abilities: Effects of gender and videogames

Abstract

Spatial Abilities are cognitive skills that are linked to success in science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics (STEAM) fields. The goal of this paper is to develop a predictive model of Mental Rotation and Spatial Visualization scores to freshman engineering students. To this end, we conducted a study with 433 students at University of La Laguna in autumn of 2004. The ANCOVA analysis showed that gender, age, videogame players, the years that students course technical drawing and if they are workers are significant variables. The paper propose two predictive models for Mental Rotation and Spatial Visualization that helps us early detect students with lower levels of spatial abilities. Copyright 2014 ACM.