Evaluating Middle School Students' Spatial Scientific Performance within Earth/Space Astronomy in Terms of Gender and Race/Ethnicity
Differences were examined between groups of sixth grade students' spatial scientific development pre/post implementation of an Earth/Space unit. Treatment teachers employed a spatially integrated Earth/Space curriculum, while control teachers implemented their Business as Usual (BAU) Earth/Space units. A multi level modeling approach was used in a hierarchical manner to evaluate student performance on the Purdue Spatial Visualization: Rotation test (PSVT Rot) and on the Lunar Phases Concept Inventory (which included four spatial domains) while controlling for two variables (gender and race/ethnicity) at the student level and one variable (teaching experience) at the teacher level. Results showed Treatment girls achieved higher LPCI Periodic Patterns (PP) spatial domain post scores than girls in the BAU group. A gender gap was also observed (in favor of boys) within the BAU group for PP domain post scores, while no gap was shown within the Treatment group. In addition, results for PP suggest Students of Color tended to have lower PP scores than White students (Effect Size .29) and that higher pretest PP scores tended to lead to higher posttest PP scores, after adjusting for other student and teacher characteristics. The only statistically significant predictor of the PSVT Rot posttest scores were scores on the respective pretest.