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USING BOOKS TO IMPROVE MENTAL ROTATION SKILLS WITH 4- AND 5-YEAR-OLD CHILDREN
Tavassolie, Nadia
Tavassolie, Nadia
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Thesis/Dissertation
Date
2024-05
Advisor
Gunderson, Elizabeth
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Newcombe, Nora
Weinraub, Marsha
Hirsh-Pasek, Kathy
Newton, Kristie Jones, 1973-
Flanigan, Judith
Weinraub, Marsha
Hirsh-Pasek, Kathy
Newton, Kristie Jones, 1973-
Flanigan, Judith
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Psychology
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http://dx.doi.org/10.34944/dspace/10212
Abstract
Mental rotation skills predict later achievement in STEM (Wai, Lubinski, & Benbow, 2009). Prior research shows that children’s mental rotation skills improve after training (Hawes, Gilligan-Lee, & Mix, 2022; Uttal et al., 2013). However, most studies have used dynamic stimuli where children see objects rotating. We hypothesized that reading books that practice mental rotation with only static images could improve children’ mental rotation skills. We preregistered a pretest-training-posttest design with 4- and 5-year-olds (N = 80). Children completed a mental rotation assessment at pretest, four to six reading days with an experimenter over two weeks in one of two randomly-assigned conditions (Mental Rotation Book Condition versus Control Book Condition), and a mental rotation assessment at posttest. The Mental Rotation Books involved mental rotation practice while the Control Books did not.
Consistent with our hypothesis, condition was a significant predictor of posttest mental rotation accuracy, controlling for age, verbal ability, and pretest mental rotation accuracy. Children in the Mental Rotation Book condition significantly improved from pretest (M = .59, SD = .24) to posttest (M = .75, SD = .21), while the control group did not. However, condition was not a significant predictor of posttest mental transformation skills, math achievement, or spatial vocabulary, controlling for age, verbal ability, and respective pretest scores.
Book-reading may be a scalable method for improving mental rotation skills in early childhood and warrants further intervention studies using book-reading at home or in schools to improve spatial skills.
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