Spatial skills and success in problem solving within engineering education

It is widely established that improving students' spatial abilities has a significant relationship with advanced levels of performance in a wide variety of engineering education areas. Although a relationship between spatial skills and success in engineering education has been shown, the exact nature of this relationship is not well understood. A dearth exists in the research literature investigating the exact role of spatial cognition in problem conceptualisation and this will form the core focus of this paper. A mixed methods approach was adopted where 3rd year undergraduate students were tasked with solving a series of applied convergent style problems. An electroencephalographic (EEG) headset was utilised to monitor cognitive activity during the problem solving episodes with a particular focus on the types of cognitive strategies students adopted when conceptualising the problems. Findings indicate that students who evidenced a pattern of visuospatial cognition performed in a more agile manner. This paper demonstrates evidence that spatial skills have a precise and important role in problem solving competencies within engineering education.