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ABSTRACT
The Purdue Spatial Visualization Test: Rotations (PSVT:R) is commonly used in engineering education to measure spatial ability in efforts to predict academic or vocational success, or as a placement test. However, the politics of the instrument are rarely discussed. Here I provide a critical review of the historical literature that provides the basis for current work using the PSVT:R. I examine the validation and popularization of the PSVT:R, discuss how the instrument may not actually measure mental rotation, and explain how the construct of ‘gestalt processing’ was created in an effort to raise the status of spatial instruments which favored men. I argue that the isometric imagery style used in the test, which is rooted in the masculinized discipline of engineering graphics, further politicizes the test. I discuss the usage of the PSVT:R in spatial training efforts targeting historically excluded groups, and how understanding the politics of the PSVT:R should inform future efforts.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Khine, “Spatial Cognition.”
2 Wai, Lubinski, and Benbow, “Spatial Ability for STEM Domains.”
3 Sorby, Veurink, and Streiner, “Does Spatial Skills Instruction Improve STEM Outcomes?”
4 Clark and Fujimura, “What Tools? Which Jobs? Why Right?”
5 Ibid.
6 Winner, “Do Artifacts Have Politics?”
7 Uttal et al., “The Malleability of Spatial Skills.”
8 Carroll, Human Cognitive Abilities; Hegarty and Waller, “Individual Differences in Spatial Abilities”; Lohman, “Spatial Abilities as Traits, Processes, and Knowledge.”
9 Caplan, MacPherson, and Tobin, “Do Sex-related Differences in Spatial Abilities Exist?”
10 Ibid.
11 Linn and Petersen, “Emergence and Characterization of Sex Differences in Spatial Ability”; Maeda and Yoon, “A Meta-analysis on Gender Differences in Mental Rotation Ability Measured by the Purdue Spatial Visualization Tests”; Voyer, Voyer, and Bryden, “Magnitude of Sex Differences in Spatial Abilities.”
12 Sorby, Veurink, and Streiner, “Does Spatial Skills Instruction Improve STEM Outcomes?”
13 Ibid.
14 Uttal et al., “The Malleability of Spatial Skills.”
15 Stieff and Uttal, “How Much Can Spatial Training Improve STEM Achievement?”
16 Bockmon et al., “A Hybrid Approach to Administering a Spatial Skills Intervention”; De Rosa and Fontaine, “Implementation and First-year Results of an Engineering Spatial-skills Enhancement Program”; Endres et al., “To Read or to Rotate?”; Fontaine, “The Relationship between Persistence, Effort, and Achievement in a Spatial Skills Training Program”; Ly et al., “Spatial Skills and Demographic Factors in CS1”; Metz, Jarosewich, and Metz, “Board 103”; Serrano Anazco and Zurn-Birkhimer, “Using Origami and CAD as Tools for Spatial Ability Training for First-year Female Engineering Students”; Sorby, Veurink, and Streiner, “Does Spatial Skills Instruction Improve STEM Outcomes?”; Veurink and Sorby, “Longitudinal Study of the Impact of Requiring Training for Students with Initially Weak Spatial Skills.”
17 Guay, “Purdue Spatial Visualisation Test: Rotations”; Yoon, “Revised Purdue Spatial Visualization Test.”
18 Maeda and Yoon, “A Meta-analysis on Gender Differences in Mental Rotation Ability Measured by the Purdue Spatial Visualization Tests”; Maeda and Yoon, “Are Gender Differences in Spatial Ability Real or an Artifact?”
19 Bockmon et al., “A Hybrid Approach to Administering a Spatial Skills Intervention”; De Rosa and Fontaine, “Implementation and First-year Results of an Engineering Spatial-skills Enhancement Program”; Endres et al., “To Read or to Rotate?”; Fontaine, “The Relationship between Persistence, Effort, and Achievement in a Spatial Skills Training Program”; Ly et al., “Spatial Skills and Demographic Factors in CS1”; Metz, Jarosewich, and Metz, “Board 103”; Serrano Anazco and Zurn-Birkhimer, “Using Origami and CAD as Tools for Spatial Ability Training for First-year Female Engineering Students”; Sorby, Veurink, and Streiner, “Does Spatial Skills Instruction Improve STEM Outcomes?”; Veurink and Sorby, “Longitudinal Study of the Impact of Requiring Training for Students with Initially Weak Spatial Skills.”
20 Yue, “Spatial Visualization by Isometric Drawing.”
21 Yoon, “Psychometric Properties of the Revised Purdue Spatial Visualization Tests”; Yoon, “Revised Purdue Spatial Visualization Test.”
22 ASME, “American Society of Mechanical Engineers Code of Ethics”; Hoke, “Engineers’ Professional Opinions Must be Grounded in Observation and Analysis”; Douglas and Purzer, “Validity.”
23 Handley et al., “Quality of Evidence Revealing Subtle Gender Biases in Science Is in the Eye of the Beholder.”
24 Vandenberg and Kuse, “Mental Rotations, a Group Test of Three-dimensional Spatial Visualization.”
25 Bartlett and Camba, “Gender Differences in Spatial Ability.”
26 Haverkamp et al., “Calling for a Paradigm Shift in the Study of Gender in Engineering Education”; Karkazis, “The Misuses of ‘Biological Sex’.”
27 Connell, Gender in World Perspective.
28 Ariel et al., “Are there Sex Differences in Confidence and Metacognitive Monitoring Accuracy for Everyday, Academic, and Psychometrically Measured Spatial Ability?”
29 Baenninger and Newcombe, “The Role of Experience in Spatial Test Performance”; Levine et al., “Sex Differences in Spatial Cognition.”
30 Sorby, “Developing 3D Spatial Skills for Engineering Students.”
31 Maeda and Yoon, “A Meta-analysis on Gender Differences in Mental Rotation Ability Measured by the Purdue Spatial Visualization Tests.”
32 Gould, The Mismeasure of Man.
33 Ibid.
34 Ibid.
35 Zuberi, Thicker than Blood: How Racial Statistics Lie.
36 Ibid.
37 Guttman et al., “A Structural Theory of Spatial Abilities.”
38 Hegarty and Waller, “Individual Differences in Spatial Abilities.”
39 Lombroso and Ferrero, Female Offender; Sherman, Sex-related Congitive Differences.
40 Maeda and Yoon, “A Meta-analysis on Gender Differences in Mental Rotation Ability Measured by the Purdue Spatial Visualization Tests.”
41 Farrell, Duffy, and Bowe, “A Cross-cultural Exploration of Spatial Visualisation Abilities of First Year STEM Students.”
42 Laricheva and Ilikchyan, “Exploring the Effect of Virtual Reality on Learning in General Chemistry Students with Low Visual-spatial Skills.”
43 Cole and Farrell, “Development of an Online, Strategy-based Intervention to Improve Spatial Skills”; Farrell, Duffy, and Bowe, “A Cross-cultural Exploration of Spatial Visualisation Abilities of First Year STEM Students”; Gali and Venukapalli, “Does Visual-spatial Cognition Affect Children’s Astronomical Experiences?”; Gonzales et al., “Does Spatial Awareness Training Affect Anatomy Learning in Medical Students?”; Laricheva and Ilikchyan, “Exploring the Effect of Virtual Reality on Learning in General Chemistry Students with Low Visual-spatial Skills”; Oliver-Hoyo and Babilonia-Rosa, “Promotion of Spatial Skills in Chemistry and Biochemistry Education at the College Level”; Weng et al., “Mixed Reality in Science Education as a Learning Support.”
44 Maeda and Yoon, “A Meta-analysis on Gender Differences in Mental Rotation Ability Measured by the Purdue Spatial Visualization Tests.”
45 Yoon, “Psychometric Properties of the Revised Purdue Spatial Visualization Tests.”
46 Maeda et al., “Psychometric Properties of the Revised PSVT:R for Measuring First Year Engineering Students’ Spatial Ability.”
47 Maeda and Yoon, “A Meta-analysis on Gender Differences in Mental Rotation Ability Measured by the Purdue Spatial Visualization Tests.”
48 Guay, McDaniel, and Angelo, “Analytic Factor Confounding Spatial Ability Measurement”; Branoff, “The Effects of Adding Coordinate Axes to a Mental Rotations Task in Measuring Spatial Visualization Ability in Introductory Undergraduate Technical Graphics Courses”; Smith, Spatial Ability.
49 Guay, McDaniel, and Angelo, “Analytic Factor Confounding Spatial Ability Measurement.”
50 Smith, Spatial Ability.
51 Branoff, “The Effects of Adding Coordinate Axes to a Mental Rotations Task in Measuring Spatial Visualization Ability in Introductory Undergraduate Technical Graphics Courses.”
52 Ibid.; Guay, McDaniel, and Angelo, “Analytic Factor Confounding Spatial Ability Measurement.”
53 Faulkner, “Dualisms, Hierarchies and Gender in Engineering.”
54 Guay, “Spatial Ability Measurement.”
55 Guay, McDaniel, and Angelo, “Analytic Factor Confounding Spatial Ability Measurement.”
56 Branoff, “The Effects of Adding Coordinate Axes to a Mental Rotations Task in Measuring Spatial Visualization Ability in Introductory Undergraduate Technical Graphics Courses.”
57 Eliot and Smith, An International Directory of Spatial Tests; Vandenberg, “Sources of Variance in Performance of Spatial Tests.”
58 Sherman, Sex-related Congitive Differences.
59 Sherman, “Problem of Sex Differences in Space Perception and Aspects of Intellectual Functioning.”
60 Sherman, Sex-related Congitive Differences.
61 Black, “Spatial Ability and Earth Science Conceptual Understanding.”
62 Linn and Petersen, “Emergence and Characterization of Sex Differences in Spatial Ability.”
63 Shepard and Cooper, Mental Images and their Transformations.
64 Guay, McDaniel, and Angelo, “Analytic Factor Confounding Spatial Ability Measurement.”
65 Bock and Kolakowski, “Further Evidence of Sex-linked Major-gene Influence on Human Spatial Visualizing Ability”; Michael et al., “The Description of Spatial-visualization Abilities.”
66 Guay, McDaniel, and Angelo, “Analytic Factor Confounding Spatial Ability Measurement.”
67 Smith, Spatial Ability.
68 Spearman and Jones, Human Ability.
69 Eliot and Smith, An International Directory of Spatial Tests.
70 Ibid.
71 Guay, “Spatial Ability Measurement.”
72 Eliot and Smith, An International Directory of Spatial Tests.
73 Guay, McDaniel, and Angelo, “Analytic Factor Confounding Spatial Ability Measurement.”
74 Kaufmann et al., “Design of a Virtual Reality Supported Test for Spatial Abilities.”
75 Uttal et al., “The Malleability of Spatial Skills.”
76 Atit, Uttal, and Stieff, “Situating Space.”
77 Guay, “Spatial Ability Measurement.”
78 Ibid.
79 Ibid.; Guay, McDaniel, and Angelo, “Analytic Factor Confounding Spatial Ability Measurement”; Guay and Mcdaniel, “The Relationship between Mathematics Achievement and Spatial Abilities among Elementary School Children”; Bodner and Guay, “The Purdue Visualization of Rotations Test.”
80 Yoon, “Psychometric Properties of the Revised Purdue Spatial Visualization Tests.”
81 Maeda et al., “Psychometric Properties of the Revised PSVT:R for Measuring First Year Engineering Students’ Spatial Ability.”
82 Shepard and Metzler, “Mental Rotation of Three-dimensional Objects.”
83 Hegarty, “Ability and Sex Differences in Spatial Thinking.”
84 Sorby, Veurink, and Streiner, “Does Spatial Skills Instruction Improve STEM Outcomes?”
85 Baenninger and Newcombe, “The Role of Experience in Spatial Test Performance”; Uttal et al., “The Malleability of Spatial Skills.”
86 Liptow et al., “A Sense of Belonging.”
87 Sorby et al., “The Role of Spatial Training in Improving Spatial and Calculus Performance in Engineering Students”; Stieff and Uttal, “How Much can Spatial Training Improve STEM Achievement?”
88 Ortner and Sieverding, “Where are the Gender Differences?”; Sanchis-Segura et al., “Do Gender-related Stereotypes Affect Spatial Performance?”
89 Stieff et al., “Operational Constraints on the Mental Rotation of STEM Representations.”
90 Bebbington, “Women in Science, Engineering and Technology”; Beddoes and Borrego, “Feminist Theory in Three Engineering Education Journals.”
91 Sherman, “Problem of Sex Differences in Space Perception and Aspects of Intellectual Functioning.”
92 Bartlett and Camba, “The Role of a Graphical Interpretation Factor in the Assessment of Spatial Visualization”; Bartlett and Camba, “Isometric Projection as a Threat to Validity in the PSVT:R.”
93 Bartlett and Camba, “Is this a Real 3D Shape?”
94 Branoff, “Spatial Visualization Measurement”; Yue, “Spatial Visualization by Realistic 3D Views.”
95 Branoff, “Spatial Visualization Measurement.”
96 Yue, “Spatial Visualization by Realistic 3D Views.”
97 Sherman, “Problem of Sex Differences in Space Perception and Aspects of Intellectual Functioning.”
98 Bartlett and Camba, “Gender Differences in Spatial Ability.”
99 Guay, “Spatial Ability Measurement.”
100 Bodner and Guay, “The Purdue Visualization of Rotations Test.”
101 Ibid.
102 Bartlett and Camba, “Gender Differences in Spatial Ability.”
103 Ibid.
104 Yoon, “Psychometric Properties of the Revised Purdue Spatial Visualization Tests.”
105 Beddoes, “Institutional Influences that Promote Studying Down in Engineering Diversity Research.”
106 Handley et al., “Quality of Evidence Revealing Subtle Gender Biases in Science Is in the Eye of the Beholder.”
107 Yoon, “Revised Purdue Spatial Visualization Test.”
108 Guay, McDaniel, and Angelo, “Analytic Factor Confounding Spatial Ability Measurement”; Smith, Spatial Ability.
109 Guay, McDaniel, and Angelo, “Analytic Factor Confounding Spatial Ability Measurement”; Smith, Spatial Ability.
110 Eliot and Smith, An International Directory of Spatial Tests; Smith, Spatial Ability.
111 Eliot and Smith, An International Directory of Spatial Tests.
112 Guay, “Spatial Ability Measurement.”
113 Guay, McDaniel, and Angelo, “Analytic Factor Confounding Spatial Ability Measurement.”
114 Guay, “Spatial Ability Measurement”; Vandenberg, “Sources of Variance in Performance of Spatial Tests.”
115 Guay, “Spatial Ability Measurement.”
116 Guay, McDaniel, and Angelo, “Analytic Factor Confounding Spatial Ability Measurement.”
117 Branoff, “The Effects of Adding Coordinate Axes to a Mental Rotations Task in Measuring Spatial Visualization Ability in Introductory Undergraduate Technical Graphics Courses”; Eliot and Smith, An International Directory of Spatial Tests; Vandenberg, “Sources of Variance in Performance of Spatial Tests.”
118 Branoff, “The Effects of Adding Coordinate Axes to a Mental Rotations Task in Measuring Spatial Visualization Ability in Introductory Undergraduate Technical Graphics Courses”; Guay, McDaniel, and Angelo, “Analytic Factor Confounding Spatial Ability Measurement.”
119 Branoff, “The Effects of Adding Coordinate Axes to a Mental Rotations Task in Measuring Spatial Visualization Ability in Introductory Undergraduate Technical Graphics Courses”; Guay, McDaniel, and Angelo, “Analytic Factor Confounding Spatial Ability Measurement.”