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Exploring Spatial Cognitive Process Among STEM Students and Its Role in STEM Education

A Cognitive Neuroscience Perspective

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Abstract

Spatial ability is a powerful systematic source of individual differences in the areas of science, technology, engineering, and technology (STEM). Abundant research has evidenced that psychometrically assessed spatial ability is a strong predictor of STEM achievement. However, its underlying cognitive process and relevant role in STEM education are unknown. From the perspective of cognitive neuroscience, spatial ability is also considered a human intelligence deriving from the cognitive processing of spatial information in the brain. With the help of the cognitive neuroscience paradigm of spatial navigation, in the present work, we investigate the spatial cognitive process among STEM students and its role in STEM education. A total of 172 undergraduates majoring in veterinary science participated in a spatial navigation test. Participants attempted to return a toy to its original place in an arena when given either internal self-motion cues only, external landmark cues only, or both in a spatial navigation task. Modelling analysis of 172 participants’ spatial navigation behaviours showed that all the participants’ spatial cognitive processes featured navigation cue integration. The results of the different tests showed that students with higher levels of navigation cue integration had better academic performance in STEM learning. The results also indicated that, surprisingly, better academic performance in science and mathematics relied more on the use of internal self-motion cues, while better academic performance in engineering and technology relied more on the use of external landmark cues. This study sheds some light on the spatial cognitive process and its role in STEM education from the cognitive neuroscience perspective, thus deepening the functional understanding of spatial ability as a systemic source of individual differences for STEM education, and provides an empirical reference point for interdisciplinary studies on the role of cognition in the context of STEM education. Implications on STEM learning design and STEM teaching were discussed.

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The data and material used in the paper is available from the authors upon request.

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Acknowledgements

Authors would like to gratefully acknowledge the Department of Education of Hubei province for their support of this work. Meanwhile, authors would like to gratefully acknowledge Marko Nardini for his help in implementing the research paradigm.

Funding

This study is supported by the College Teaching Research Project of Hubei Province in China (grant no. 2017289).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Educational Technology/Smart Learning Institute, Faculty of Education, Beijing Normal University, Xinjiekouwai Street, Haidian Disrict, Beijing, 100875, China

    Xiaoshan Li

  2. School of Systems Science, Beijing Normal University, Xinjiekouwai Street, Haidian Disrict, Beijing, 100875, China

    Wenjing Wang

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All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection, and analysis were performed byWenjing Wang and Xiaoshan Li. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Wenjing Wang, and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Li, X., Wang, W. Exploring Spatial Cognitive Process Among STEM Students and Its Role in STEM Education. Sci & Educ 30, 121–145 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11191-020-00167-x

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