SUPPORTING SPATIAL THINKING IN UNDERGRADUATES USING THE AUGMENTED-REALITY SANDBOX

Spatial reasoning ability is a crucial skill necessary for success in any of the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) domains. Research suggests that the base level of spatial thinking ability is how students self-organize into their majors and careers (Wai et al., 2013), where students may select out of STEM domains due to the level of spatial ability they possess. However, spatial reasoning is malleable and, with training, could increase student participation in the STEM domains. One approach to support the development of student spatial skills is through using innovative technologies that effectively teach content and train spatial ability in the process. The augmented reality (AR) sandbox is an interactive technology that teaches geological concepts and, perhaps, spatial reasoning ability simultaneously. Despite, several recent publications that have utilized the sandbox in the undergraduate classroom (Woods et al., 2017; Giorgis et al., 2017), there has not been evidence for the usefulness of the AR sandbox on improving spatial reasoning ability. Activities were developed with the AR sandbox to teach topography and watersheds and train spatial ability. The Spatial Reasoning Instrument (SRI) (Ramful et al., 2017) was distributed to the undergraduate student population enrolled at a large research institution in the southeastern US. Participants from the pool of undergraduate students who have completed the SRI participated in the lab study to determine if (1) high- and low-performers on the SRI are solving spatial tasks differently, and (2) if our AR sandbox activities effectively train spatial reasoning ability.