The Vocational Aspect of Education, Volume 44, Number 1, 1992

Spatial Ability and its Role in United Kingdom Education

PAULINE SMITH National Foundation for Educational Research, United Kingdom

ABSTRACT Traditional concepts of education, which relegate practical abilities to minor significance, are considered to be inadequate. In particular, the traditional concepts underplay the significance of spatial ability, which here is considered as fundamental to intellectual functioning. Ongoing work confirms this to be so, thus giving an added impetus to a handbook of teaching for spatial ability.

In 1986, Patrick Nuttgens, architect and then Director of Leeds Polytechnic, wrote:

There is, in Britain, a deeply ingrained belief that practical people must be stupid... It is still assumed that the brighter will go on to further study and the dimmer will do practical tasks.

In succeeding years, the deleterious effect this belief has had and is still having upon the United Kingdom's economic well-being has become all too clear. Strenuous efforts are now being made to improve the image of vocational education, by creating a system of National Vocational qualifications which will be officially recognised as of the same standard as academic qualifications. However, there are many sceptics who believe that it will take much more than an official equating of qualifications for true 'parity of esteem' to be achieved in the UK.

Research currently being conducting at the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) indicates that a much more fundamental change needs to take place if practically based qualifications are to have any hope of being seen as evidence of intellectual capacity on a par with that which is assumed from academic qualifications. This change concerns the way 'intelligence' is characterised by the educational world and by UK society in general. As Nuttgens (1986) said, practical skills are

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not generally considered as evidence of 'brightness'. He went on to suggest that verbal and numerical abilities are assumed to be primary indicators of 'brightness'. The reasoning behind this assumption is simple. In the UK, education has traditionally concentrated on the development and use of verbal and numerical skills. Consequently, verbal and numerical abilities have been prerequisites for educational success . The emphasis that society places on educational success as an indicator of brightness means that those who lack such skills are regarded as less 'bright'.

To understand the deficiencies in this conceptualisation of intelligence, we need to go back to a theoretical model of intelligence developed some 40 years ago (Vernon, 1950). This model was based on the results of studies that involved giving a wide range of psychological tests to army recruits and then statistically analysing the way in which scores on the tests interrelated. The model held that there existed a 'general reasoning' factor (g) which influenced performance on all tests. Beyond this, the tests fell mainly into two major groups, according to whether they seemed to involve verbal/numerical thinking or spatial/mechanical/practical thinking. Educational attainment tests mainly fell into the first group, so it was named the v:ed factor. The second factor, named k:m, was judged to have relevance for various manual and mechanical pursuits, but to have little bearing upon educational success. Accordingly, it became common practice to select pupils for grammar schools by relying upon some combination of headteachers ' reports and tests of English, arithmetic and verbal reasoning; since the last of these was deemed to measure g with an element of v:ed.

Our research suggests that there is now an urgent need to re-evaluate the significance of spatial ability in education, and by implication, the justification for giving verbal ability a pre-eminent place in the assessment of intellectual ability. Over the past 20 years, considerable research work has been done in the USA in an at tempt to identify exactly what underlies individual differences in spatial ability. Although more work needs to be done, the available evidence suggests that spatial tests are essentially measuring how well people can create, retain and manipulate internal images of shapes (Lohman, 1988). The basic memory aspect seems to be the most crucial in determining a person 's apti tude for spatial tasks. Beyond this, their ability to perform any of a wide range of spatial tasks will depend upon their experience of and practice at the task.

These research findings mean that spatial ability, or rather spatial aptitude, can no longer be dismissed as a narrow aspect of intelligence, only important for certain manual or practical occupations. Instead, it needs to be recognised as a fundamental part of intellectual functioning. It may influence potential for achievement in many academic subjects

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such as mathematics, physics, geography, technology, as well as many occupations, from architect to engineer and from neurosurgeon to store manager. This is essentially the view put forward many years ago by Ian MacFarlane Smith (1964), one of the few British researchers with an enduring interest in spatial ability.

Our own work has so far concentrated on developing and validating adequate tests of basic spatial memory for use with people aged eight to adult. Our results are not fully analysed yet, but the evidence so far seems to suppor t the above viewpoint. Our basic shape memory tests have been found to be significantly related to performance in many 'spatial' school subjects, as well as to some supposedly verbal tasks which may in fact make use of spatial memory, like spelling. However, the tests have not shown such a clear relationship with linguistic subjects like history and English literature. This suggests that the common educational practice of referring to mental ability in the singular, as in 'mixed-ability teaching' may be misguided; which could be resulting in the many spatially gifted people with poor verbal ability being erroneously categorised as 'of low ability'. In consequence, such people 's talents may be being underdeveloped and their needs for learning techniques that capitalise on their spatial strengths may not be being met.

In response, we have begun a new project at the NFER, to create a spatial handbook for educators. This will explain in more detail the ideas presented above and will describe the dual responsibilities of the educator. First, they need to recognise that acquiring a range of spatial skills is important for all pupils or students; both for their educational or occupational success and for their everyday competence. These skills (e.g. estimating, map-reading, simple drawing) need to be taught to all, just as verbal skills are so taught. The fact that few of us have the potential of Michelangelo is no reason not to teach basic spatial skills, any more than the fact that there are few who have the potential of Shakespeare means we should not be taught to write. Second, educators need to identify people with relative spatial strengths, so that their particular needs can be met and their talents can be nurtured. To demonstra te convincingly the existence of such cases, we intend to include various brief accounts, drawn from biographical studies of the famous and personal testimonies provided by people in spatial occupations.

The handbook will include a range of practical teaching ideas, gathered from teachers and lecturers as well as published sources, to help develop basic spatial memory, spatial thinking skills and skills in spatial activities like designing, drawing and navigating. It will also include a section describing ways of ensuring that spatial presentation and s tudy techniques are used to good effect alongside verbal methods in teaching any type of subject matter; so that spatially biased individuals

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can have the best chance of learning. The importance of such an approach in vocational education was demonstrated by Sofo (1986) in this journal, although the theoretical s tandpoint was very different. Sofo interpreted graphics as a "signalling system for reading and for speech". Thus, when poor prose readers were found to benefit more from graphical presentation than did good prose readers, this was interpreted as evidence that graphical displays were compensating for poor reading skills by presenting the linguistic ideas in a visual form. We would suggest that the poor prose readers may have been spatially biased and, hence, bet ter able to absorb ideas presented visually.

In conclusion, we are aiming to increase awareness of the role of spatial ability in education, and to ensure that 'practical skills' come to be recognised as evidence of broad spatial aptitude, not as isolated, low-level talents. If this could be achieved, it should help to establish real parity of esteem for vocational and academic subjects, and in the long term may provide the UK with the spatially skilled workforce necessary to ensure its economic well-being.

We would be very pleased to hear from any readers who might wish to contr ibute to the handbook, express suppor t for its aims or who simply want to know further details. Please write in the first instance to the cor respondence address below.

Acknowledgement

The research reported in this article was funded by a generous beques t to the NFER by Dr lan MacFarlane Smith.

Correspondence

Pauline Smith, Department of Assessment and Measurement, National Foundation for Educational Research, The Mere, Upton Park, Slough SL1 2DQ, United Kingdom.

References

Lohman, D.F. (1988) Spatial Abilities as Traits, Processes, and Knowledge, in R.J. Sternberg (Ed.) Advances in the Psychology of Human Intelligence, Vol. 4. Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum.

MacFarlane Smith, I. (1964) Spatial Ability: its educational and social significance. London: University of London Press.

Nuttgens, P.J. (1986) The Educational Failure, in T. Burgess (Ed.) Education for Capability. Windsor: NFER-Nelson.

SoIo, F. (1986) Graphic literacy - part 11. A recent study, The VocationaiAspect of Education, 38, pp. 81-4.

Vernon, P.E. (1950) The Structure of Human Abilities. London: Methuen.

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