Spatial visualization ability among engineering students in Malaysia

Abstract

Spatial visualization ability is an important element in any engineering field and it is related to the achievement in the engineering disciplines. First-year engineering students come from different background and experiences and therefore their spatial visualization ability also differ. As a result, the students need to put additional effort and attention in gaining better results in their studies specially in engineering drawing. Due to several less effective approaches in delivering the content of engineering drawing has caused the difficulties in bridging the gap between the high performance students and low performance students. Visualization skills are important in determining the success of engineering students. Educators also need to develop students visualization skills in their early year of studies. Therefore, this research was carried out to identify the spatial visualization ability of engineering students in Malaysia. This research used descriptive statistics to identify the central tendency especially mean value, frequency and percentage of the data. The instrument used in this study was the standard test of visualization skills consisting of Spatial Visualization Ability Test (SVAT), Mental Rotation Test (MRT), and Differential Aptitude Test: Space Relations (DAT: SR) where the instrument was distributed randomly among undergraduate engineering students in Malaysia. The findings showed that the students' visualization skills were moderately high.