Associations Between Spatial Ability and Math Achievement Across Development

• In Event: Motivation in Mathematics

Abstract

Empirical evidence suggests that spatial reasoning skills, and particularly mental rotation abilities, relate to mathematical performance, but our understanding of the development of this relation and its variability across math subdomains remains limited. To address this gap, we meta-analyzed 184 correlations quantifying the association between mental rotation and math achievement in 24,687 participants aged 4-32 years. Mental rotation performance was moderately correlated with math achievement (r=0.31) across development and regardless of gender. However, mental rotation skills were more closely related to analytical problem-solving and geometry abilities than to arithmetic or numerical processing. These findings demonstrate a notable stability in the relation between mental rotation and math achievement while also shedding light on key moderators.

Authors

• Jillian Lauer, New York University

• Eukyung Yhang, Boston University