Techniques used to Improve Spatial Visualization Skills of Students in Engineering Graphics Course: A Survey <s> I. INTRODUCTION <s> This article brings up the point that 3-D spatial visualization skills are vital to graphics education. Instructors of graphics education, even though they have highly advanced spatial skills, rarely have the proper training on what spatial skills are or how the development of spatial skills takes place. As a result one must try to have a better understanding of spatial abilities. There are many interpretations as to what spatial skills really are and there is in therefore no one universal definition. As a way to better understand spatial abilities, Maier places them into five categories. The categories are spatial perception, spatial visualization, mental rotations, spatial rotations, and spatial orientation. These categories are vast. As a result of their vastness many of the categories overlap. Another step towards better understanding spatial skills involves differentiating how spatial skills are used while completing a task. Tartre makes a classification for how spatial skills are used while performing a task. The spatial skills are either used as spatial visualization that involves mentally moving the object, or as spatial orientation, which involves mentally moving the object. If the task involves spatial visualization then mental rotation can take place, which involves the entire object, or mental transformation can occur, which only involves part of an object. Visual thinking is a way to understand spatial skills. McKim offers the viewpoint that visual thinking occurs by three kinds of imagery. They are what one sees, what one can imagine, and what one can draw. All of these images interact with one another. Spatial skills are developed primarily in three different stages. This can be see be Piaget's theory on development. In the first stage, two dimensional, topological, skills are acquired. In the second stage, an understanding of 3-D objects, projective skills, from different viewpoints is achieved. Finally in the third stage, there is an understanding of area, volume, distance, translation, rotation and reflection, which is combined with projective skills. Spatial skills are evaluated in a variety of ways. There are tests that assess a person's projective skill level. Examples of these would be the Mental Cutting Test and the Differential Aptitude Test: Spatial Relation. Other tests assess mental rotation. Examples of mental rotation tests are the Purdue Spatial Visualization Test and the Mental Rotation Test. Results of these evaluations show mixed results as to whether there are gender differences in spatial skills. In order to enhance spatial skills, one must not only work with 3-D images, but they must also use concrete models and sketching. Overall I thought this article was very informative. It presented the information in a clear and concise manner. I summarized the information that I thought was especially useful for this class. The article really made me think how important it is not only to have spatial skills, but also to have an understanding of them. <s> BIB001 </s> Techniques used to Improve Spatial Visualization Skills of Students in Engineering Graphics Course: A Survey <s> I. INTRODUCTION <s> Part visualization is a fundamental skill in engineering. It comprises the reading, interpretation and creation of industrial technical drawings, understanding the different views (multi-view) of an object/piece represented in any technical drawing. The ability to mentally visualize and manipulate objects and situations is an essential need in many jobs and careers. It is estimated that at least 84 majors consider visualization a fundamental need, and in technical jobs, many of them related to the different types of engineering, the ability to visualize has a crucial importance. Educators have often pointed out the difficulties of most students in graphic courses when trying to visualize an object using multi-view drawings. This is mainly due to the inexistence of a systematic process to analyze complex forms. A thorough review of the literature in technical drawing textbooks has not been successful in finding a clear, concise, and properly developed method of solving visualization problems by means of procedural contents. In collaboration with several experts and for the first time, a problem solving model for visualization has been designed and developed for all kind of industrial objects (Methodology for Part Visualization Problem Solving) within a constructivist didactic framework. This Problem Solving model is the key to all technical knowledge and is an application of the scientific method. In order to solve visualization problems in any kind of industrial object, comprehension indicators have been defined and a Teaching Unit has been developed with the help of dynamic images (power point and CAD files) as well as physical models. They may be applied by drawing up a programme of specific tasks which takes into account the theoretical contents and procedures involved in part visualization as well as the students' main difficulties and deficiencies when faced with this kind of problem. This teaching strategy has been applied over the last two years in the first year of Industrial Engineering at the Department of Engineering in Bilbao at the University of the Basque Country with good results. 8 New Achievements in Technology, Education and Development 120 Topics covered by the book include, but are not limited to: Research and Innovation in Education Curriculum Design and Innovation <s> BIB002 </s> Techniques used to Improve Spatial Visualization Skills of Students in Engineering Graphics Course: A Survey <s> I. INTRODUCTION <s> This meta-analysis was conducted to estimate the magnitude of gender difference in three-dimensional (3-D) mental rotation ability and to investigate how factors related to test administration conditions play a role in varying gender difference effect sizes and threatening validity. Individuals’ 3-D mental rotation ability was measured by the Purdue Spatial Visualization Tests: Visualization of Rotations (PSVT:R). We integrated 70 effect sizes of gender differences in mental rotation ability measured by the PSVT:R which were obtained from 40 primary studies. The results indicated that male participants outperformed females on the test (Hedges’ g = 0.57). The I 2 statistic indicated 41.7 % of variation in effect sizes reflects real heterogeneity. The moderator analysis indicated that male superiority on spatial ability tasks measured by the PSVT:R is related to the implementation of time limits. The gender difference became larger when stringent time limits (equal or less than 30 s per item) were implemented. <s> BIB003 </s> Techniques used to Improve Spatial Visualization Skills of Students in Engineering Graphics Course: A Survey <s> I. INTRODUCTION <s> Virtual reality offers new possibilities and new challenges for teaching and learning. For students in elementary mathematics, it has been suggested that virtual reality offers new ways of representing numeracy concepts in the form of virtual reality manipulatives. The main goal of this thesis is to investigate the effectiveness of using desktop virtual reality as a cognitive tool to enhance the conceptual understanding of numeracy concepts by elementary school children, specifically addition and subtraction. This research investigated the technical and educational aspects of virtual reality manipulatives for children beginning to learn numeracy by implementing a prototype mathematical virtual learning environment (MAVLE) application and exploring its educational effectiveness. ::: ::: ::: This research provides three main contributions. First, the proposed design framework for the virtual reality model for cognitive learning. This framework provides an initial structure that can be further refined or revised to generate a robust design model for virtual reality learning environments. Second, the prototyping and implementation of a practical virtual reality manipulatives application ‘MAVLE’ for facilitating the teaching and learning processes of numeracy concepts (integer addition and subtraction) was proposed. Third, the evaluation of conceptual understanding of students’ achievements and the relationships among the navigational behaviours for the desktop virtual reality were examined, and their impacts on students’ learning experiences were noted. ::: ::: ::: The successful development of the virtual reality manipulatives provides further confirmation for the high potential of virtual reality technology for instructional use. In short, the outcomes of this work express the feasibility and appropriateness of how virtual reality manipulatives are used in classrooms to support students’ conceptual understanding of numeracy concepts. Virtual reality manipulatives may be the most appropriate mathematics tools for the next generation. In conclusion, this research proposes a feasible virtual reality model for cognitive learning that can be used to guide the design of other virtual reality learning environments. <s> BIB004 </s> Techniques used to Improve Spatial Visualization Skills of Students in Engineering Graphics Course: A Survey <s> I. INTRODUCTION <s> The ability to rotate visual mental images is a complex cognitive skill. It requires the building of graphical libraries of information through short or long term memory systems and the subsequent retrieval and manipulation of these towards a specified goal. The development of mental rotation skill is of critical importance within engineering design graphics. It promotes the ability to comprehend complex engineering drawings, communicate design ideas through freehand sketching, and develop CAD modeling strategies. Considering this, exploratory development research was conducted in efforts to investigate student ability levels measured by parallel pictorial items of an existing geometric mental rotation measure. Images of rotated general consumer objects were captured and composed in a corresponding format to that of the Purdue Spatial Visualization Test: Visualization of Rotations. An expert review panel from engineering/technical graphics was convened to analyze consistency of format, rotation, and solutions of the corresponding pictorial items instrument. A group of post-secondary Engineering Design Graphics students were randomly administered the Purdue Spatial Visualization Test: Visualization of Rotations where the remainder of the group was administered the pictorial item instrument. The developed pictorial instrument represented orientation familiarity, while geometric forms in the Purdue Spatial Visualization Test: Visualization of Rotations represented unfamiliar structures. Comparative analyses were conducted and differences identified pertaining to student abilities in mental rotation of geometric forms and pictorial visual rotation abilities. Summary statistics, frequency analyses, and hypothesis testing uncovered that student mental rotation abilities of geometric forms collectively exceeds that of pictorial rotation ability. <s> BIB005
The most important skill in engineering fields is Spatial Visualization Skills (SVS) BIB001 . SVS defined as "the ability to generate, retain, retrieve and transform well-structured visual images" BIB003 . Spatial ability is the ability of the human brain to produce, keep, retrieve, and transform the 3D models, virtual images, and objects. Spatial ability related to the cognitive load of memory. If students improve their spatial skills, then there is no overloaded in the cognitive load  . To improve SVS, we need to improve Mental Rotation Skill (MRS) BIB005 . MRS is the ability to mentally transform 3D objects and virtual images by rotating it in the space (in mind). MRS need a cognitive process to allow a person to mentally (in space) transform by rotating 3D objects and virtual images BIB003 . MRS is classified of a type of spatial skills. Most of the studies conduct that the spatial skills are essential for the engineering students. Such as, in BIB001 conducts that the spatial visualization is related to the engineering fields, MRS is related to SVS to build 3D models, and the spatial skill is required for the computer graphics in engineering BIB001 . Instructors in engineering colleges lock solving the difficulties faced the freshmen students in studying engineering graphics course when they tried to visualize the models BIB002 . Students cannot easily understand and processing the visual objects and mental images  . Traditional tools using textbooks, physical models, and modeling techniques is not enough to graduate engineering students with high SVS, and they fail to pass the graphic courses with high grade  . The freshmen engineering students need to have high MRS and ability to mentally visualize the 3D models like it in reality  . The MRS improved by training students to use virtual models and interacting with it by using their eyes and hands  , BIB004 . The training before studying the courses will allow students to improve their MRS and then study better with a little of difficulties. Engineering students also need to improve their SVS, and hence improving the working of the memory of human brain. Improving the working memory leads to high cognitive load in the brain BIB004 . The next section discusses strategies of MRS. Section 3 represents the techniques used to improve SVS and MRS. After that, Section 4 discusses the methods of evaluation SVS and MRS. Section 5, the literature review. Section 6 compares the papers worked in the field of enhancing the SVS. Section 7 the adaptation systems. Section 8 represents the gender differences in MRS. Section 9 summarize the road map of this survey. The paper"s conclusion presented in section 10.