Spatial Abilities in Problem Solving in Kinematics

Abstract

This study investigates the relationship between students' spatial abilities and their ability to solve problems in physics, specifically in kinematics. The approach taken is to consider spatial ability not as single and undifferentiated, but composed of different components. The hypothesis is that different types of kinematics problems require different spatial abilities. Sixty undergradu-ate psychology students, who had not taken any physics courses at college level, took a battery of cognitive tests measuring different spatial skills, ver-bal ability and mechanical reasoning. In addition, students were presented with a series of kinematics problems by means of a written problem solv-ing questionnaire. Analyses of students' responses indicated that different types of kinematics problems require different cognitive skills. It was found, for instance, that extrapolating complex two-dimensional motion correlates significantly with spatial visualisation ability, whereas inferring direction of motion from a graph correlates with spatial orientation ability. However, per-formance on other types of kinematics problems (e.g., evaluating an object's speed and some types of graph problems) do not correlate with spatial abili-ties, indicating that they may require mostly semantic knowledge of physics laws or mathematical reasoning.