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Thesis (M.S.)--Florida State University, 2003. / Advisor: Dr. Maria L. Fernandez, Florida State University, College of Education, Dept. of Middle and Secondary Education. Title and description from dissertation home page (viewed Apr. 7, 2004). Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--York University, 2008. Graduate Programme in Psychology. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 68-71). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&res_dat=xri:pqdiss&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:MR51512

Thesis (Ph. D. in Psychology)--Vanderbilt University, Aug. 2005. / Title from title screen. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2006. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes bibliographical references (p. 181-206).

No description available.

Spatial ability is the skill associated with mental relations among objects, the process of maintaining the physical aspects of an object after mentally rotating it in space. Many studies report a strong association of spatial ability with success in various areas of health care, especially surgery, radiology and dentistry. To date, similar investigations in professional nursing could not be located. Registered nurses, employed in an acute care multi-hospital setting, were surveyed using the Shipley-2Block Pattern Test, the Group Embedded Figures Test, and a newly created test of general nursing knowledge. The sample size of 123 nurses was composed of 31 male nurses and 92 female nurses. Data was collected between May and August of 2013 and analyzed using R, version 2.15.2. The present study did not demonstrate a statistically significant effect for gender differences on two measures of spatial ability. However, Cohen’s d effect sizes for mean gender differences in the present study are consistent with prior studies. This may suggest the nursing profession is comparable with other professions where males perform higher than females on spatial ability. The present study should be considered an initial step toward evaluating the relevance of spatial ability in the performance of nursing care.

Successful learning about physical systems is thought to depend on the development of a mental representation of the system's dynamic behavior, which constitutes a mental model, rather than only its static structure (e.g., Schnotz, 2005). Because dynamic mental models must be generated by learners from static diagrams, learning might be promoted by encouraging learners to visualize motion in static diagrams. However, mental models represent dynamic spatial information that might be difficult to construct for learners with lower spatial ability; they might benefit from instructional designs that support spatial reasoning, such as phase diagrams and depictive arrows. In Experiment 1, participants learned about air pumps, carburetors, and toilet tanks from single phase diagrams, multiphase diagrams, or multiphase diagrams followed by a prediction activity in which they predicted system behavior in novel situations. This prediction activity was expected to implicitly prompt mental visualization of motion. Learning in the latter condition (i.e., with the prediction activity) was significantly better than learning in the single phase condition. In the prediction condition, the enhancing effect of spatial ability on learning outcome was partially mediated by performance in the prediction activity. The mediation suggested that high spatial ability helped participants to accurately visualize the systems as they made predictions, which contributed to better performance on the learning assessment. Experiment 1 assessed visualizations during the prediction activity, whereas Experiment 2 assessed visualizations during the lessons. In two conditions in Experiment 2, participants were explicitly prompted to visualize motion in the system while viewing the lessons. Because learners with lower spatial ability were expected to have difficulty visualizing motion, arrows depicting motion were added in one condition. A baseline condition excluded the arrows and the prompt to visualize motion. In all three conditions, participants viewed multiphase diagrams followed by the prediction activity. Learning outcomes among the three conditions did not differ significantly: Depictive arrows and prompts to visualize motion were not significantly effective. Also, spatial ability did not interact with instructional condition. However, both spatial ability and subjective ratings of attempts to visualize motion were predictive of learning outcome. Overall, results from the two experiments indicated that participants with higher spatial ability were better able than participants with lower spatial ability to generate dynamic mental models from static instructions, particularly when they were implicitly prompted to reason about the system as they made predictions. Learners with lower spatial ability might need other forms of assistance for mental model generation, such as animated instructions.

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