Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

The current study investigated the relationship betweenchildren’s spatial ability and their scientific knowledge, skills andunderstanding. Children aged 7-11 years (N=123) completed abattery of five spatial tasks, based on a model of spatial ability inwhich skills fall along two dimensions: intrinsic-extrinsic; static-dynamic. Participants also answered science questions fromstandardised assessments, grouped into conceptual topic areas.Spatial scaling (extrinsic static spatial ability) and mental folding(intrinsic dynamic spatial ability) each emerged as predictors oftotal science scores, with mental folding accounting for morevariance than spatial scaling. Mental folding predicted bothphysics and biology scores, whereas spatial scaling accounted foradditional variance only in biology scores. The embeddedfigures task (intrinsic static spatial ability) predicted chemistryscores. The pattern was consistent across the age range. Thesefindings provide novel evidence for the differential role ofdistinct aspects of spatial ability in relation to children’s scienceperformance.