2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Spatial ability has been identified as a strong predictor of success in academic and industrial areas of STEM. Work has shown that spatial ability is able to be learned through targeted interventions and that once learned, it can be maintained, improved, and utilized for extended periods of time, making it an important focus of engineering education research. The use of valid and reliable instruments for assessing spatial ability is a crucial element of spatial ability research.
A variety of spatial ability instruments have been developed including the Mental Cutting Test (MCT), the Purdue Spatial Visualization Test: Visualization of Rotations (PSVT:R), and the Mental Rotations Test (MRT). Each of these common assessments measure spatial thinking with high validity and reliability, but all depend on the test subject’s visual ability to interpret isometric representations of three-dimensional objects. This paper explores the use of the Tactile Mental Cutting Test (TMCT) among sighted sophomore engineering students with temporarily occluded vision. The TMCT was adapted from the MCT with the intent of measuring spatial thinking in blind and low vision populations and has demonstrated validity and reliability. This work looks to extend the instrument’s use to measure tactilely informed spatial ability in a population which typically relies on vision.
Reliability of the TMCT with a sighted population was calculated using Cronbach’s alpha and McDonald’s omega to measure internal consistency. Preliminary results show that the TMCT is sufficiently reliable when used with a sighted population. These results provide growing evidence that argues for the use of the TMCT in studying non-visual components of spatial ability in both blind and sighted populations.