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1st Student's Major

English

1st Student's College

Arts and Humanities

Students' Professional Biography

Anthony Wacholtz is a junior technical communication major at Minnesota State University, Mankato. He was the secretary for the MSU chapter of the Society for Technical Communication for the 2004 spring semester, and he will be returning as president for the 2004-2005 year. He has completed a variety of research projects throughout high school and college.

Mentor's Name

David Engen

Mentor's Email Address

david.engen@mnsu.edu

Mentor's Department

Communication Studies

Mentor's College

Arts and Humanities

Abstract

Performing a task such as solving a Rubik’s cube can be very difficult, but it can be done after enough twists and turns. However, only an individual with extremely high spatial intelligence could be expected to solve a Rubik’s cube in his or her head. Discussing the concept of spatial intelligence, Howard Gardner makes it clear that “...Spatial intelligence is closely tied to, and grows directly out of, one’s observations of the visual world.” The term spatial intelligence, as it pertains to my research, derives from the ability to visualize and manipulate three-dimensional objects in your mind. In this experiment, I tested approximately 100 college students on two things: 1) their spatial intelligence, and 2) their ability to comprehend and execute a specific set of instructions. I used a standardized spatial test to gauge their spatial abilities. The students then had to complete an origami using one of three types of instructions: textual, graphical, or a combination of the two. Comparing the results between the three instructional mediums, I found a relationship between spatial intelligence and the ability to comprehend textual/graphical instructions.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

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