Investigating spatial skills of students from different classroom levels

The purpose of this study is to state and compare spatial intelligence skills of 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th grade students and to determine the effect of the mathematics curriculum on students' spatial skills. In this research, descriptive research method was used. The universe of this study was the upper elementary school students (5th to 8th grades) in Rize province in Turkey. The sample of the study was randomly chosen 3 schools and their all 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th grade students. There were 200 5th grade, 208 6th grade, 216 7th, grade and 211 8th grade and 835 students in total. In order to test spatial skills of students 3 main assessment tests: Spatial Relational Test (SRT), Spatial Visualization Test (SVT) and Mental Rotation Test (MRT) were used. Concerning the educational attainments in the curriculum related to spatial skills the researchers developed 8 questions in order to define the effects of Mathematics curriculum on spatial skills of students. 4 students, one from each class level, were interviewed with clinical interviews. One way variance analysis (ANOVA) was applied to test whether there was significant difference between the test scores of the classrooms. On the other hand, the data coming from clinical interviews were analyzed by SOLO taxonomy. The qualitative and quantitative data of the study were interpreted collectively and spatial skills of the students were evaluated. The results of the study showed that there was a significant difference between the Spatial Visualization Test scores of the students from different classroom levels. Except for 6th grade, the student scores for this test increased when the classroom level increased. A similar situation is also valid for Mental Rotation Test. Although the Spatial Relational Test scores of the students increased when classroom level increased, there was only significant difference between the scores of 5th and 8th graders favoring 8th graders. As another point, the researcher revealed that the attainments in the curricula related to spatial visualization and spatial relation skills affect positively spatial visualization skills of students. Keywords: spatial skills, spatial visualization, mental rotation, spatial relations.