Investigation of the relationship between spatial abilities and anxiety of middle school students and their reasoning skills and self-efficacy perceptions for geometry

The aim of this study is to determine the levels of middle school students' spatial ability, spatial anxiety, geometric reasoning skills and self-efficacy perception levels towards geometry and also to reveal the relationship between them. Relational survey model, one of the quantitative research types, was used in the study. The sample of the study consisted of a total of 640 students, 327 girls and 313 boys, in the 6th, 7th and 8th grades of a state middle school in a province in the Southeastern Anatolia Region in the 2022-2023 academic year. The data of the study were collected using the Spatial Ability Test (SAT) developed by Göktepe Yıldız (2019) for middle school students (6th, 7th and 8th grades), Geometric Reasoning Skill Test created by Seah and Horne (2019) within the scope of 'An Australian Mathematics & Science Partnership' project and adapted into Turkish by the researcher, Spatial Anxiety Scale developed by Lawton (1994) and adapted into Turkish by Dursun (2010) and the Self-Efficacy Scale for Geometry developed by Cantürk-Günhan and Başer (2007) for middle school students. In the study, the Cronbach's Alpha value of the Spatial Anxiety Scale was 0.70, the KR-20 reliability value of the Spatial Ability Scale was 0.67, the KR-20 reliability value of the Geometric Reasoning Skills Scale was 0.79, and the Cronbach's Alpha value of the Self-Efficacy Scale for Geometry was 0.85. Descriptive statistics, unrelated groups t-test, ANOVA, Multiple Correlation and Multivariate Regression Analysis techniques were used to analyse the data. The results of the study showed that spatial anxiety and geometric reasoning skills of the students differed significantly according to their gender, but their self-efficacy perceptions towards geometry and spatial abilities did not differ. It was found that students' spatial anxiety, self-efficacy towards geometry, spatial ability and geometric reasoning skills differed significantly according to their grade levels. Students' spatial anxiety, self-efficacy towards geometry, spatial ability and geometric reasoning skills differed according to their mathematics scores. A significant but weak negative relationship was found between students' spatial anxiety scores and their spatial ability scores, geometric reasoning skills scores and self-efficacy towards geometry scores. Students' spatial ability scores had a moderately significant positive relationship with geometric reasoning skills scores and self-efficacy scores for geometry. There was a significant positive but weak relationship between students' geometric reasoning skills scores and their self-efficacy scores towards geometry. As a result of multiple regression analysis, it was found that 6th grade students' mathematics scores and spatial ability variables significantly predicted their geometric reasoning skills, while gender, self-efficacy perception towards geometry and spatial anxiety variables did not significantly predict geometric reasoning skills. 7th grade students' mathematics scores predicted their geometric reasoning skills significantly; gender, spatial ability, self-efficacy perception towards geometry and spatial anxiety variables did not predict geometric reasoning skills significantly. It was found that 8th grade students' mathematics scores and spatial ability variables significantly predicted their geometric reasoning skills, but gender, self-efficacy perception towards geometry and spatial anxiety variables did not. It is seen that gender, mathematics scores and spatial ability variables are significant predictors of geometric reasoning skills of all students. Class level, self-efficacy perception towards geometry and spatial anxiety variables were not found to be significant predictors.