DOES GOOGLE EARTH VR IMPROVE 3D SPATIAL ABILITIES IN GEOSCIENCE STUDENTS?

Geology requires complex mental manipulation of spatial relationships in nearly every subfield, yet many students struggle with spatial thinking tasks in geology courses. Spatial thinking encompasses a range of cognitive tasks, including mental rotation, perspective taking, spatial visualization (or disembedding), spatial reasoning, and penetrative thinking. Geologists test high on all of these skills and most geoscience lessons use several simultaneously (Colaianne and Powell, 2011). Research from the past few decades has proven that it is possible to train our brains and spatial abilities in order to improve our potential to think about concepts in 3D (Lord, 1985). Closing achievement gaps in spatial reasoning could improve persistence and retention of a more diverse range of geology students. The goal of our research is to test if the Google Earth virtual reality (VR) program can improve spatial abilities in geoscience classrooms.

We tested the use of VR to train spatial thinking on an introductory geology course, assessing gains using a pre- and post-activity spatial reasoning test. The class of 23 students was randomly divided into control (10) and experimental (12) groups, one student was absent and excluded from the test. After the pretest and an introductory lesson on reading geologic maps, the experimental group explored the area of the geologic map using Google Earth VR on an HTC VIVE headset. The control group completed a pen-and-paper assignment teaching the same concept. Both groups completed the post-test immediately after the experimental/standard activity. The pre- and post-test is made up of several questions assessing each type of spatial thinking as well as geology-specific spatial questions. We hypothesize that the students who participated in the experimental group would show greater improvement in scores from the pre-test to the post-test. Geology-specific spatial tests showed no improvement and no differences between experimental and control groups. Initial results indicate a small improvement in mental rotation ability after the google earth VR lesson for the experimental group and no change in mental rotation ability for the control group. This may indicate that VR visualization exercises are a promising training tool for novice geoscience students.