Spatial Training with Concrete Materials or a Digital App: Effects on Preschoolers’ Spatial and Math Outcomes

• In Event: Young Children's Learning from Educational Media

Abstract

Spatial skills, or the ability to mentally or physically manipulate objects and spaces in our environment, are ubiquitous and predict later STEM achievement (Wai et al., 2009). Though spatial skills are malleable (Uttal et al., 2013), little is known about which preschool interventions optimize spatial and math skills. As children’s use of screen media is increasingly pervasive, especially for children from underserved communities (Rideout & Robb, 2020), creating spatial interventions in digital formats could offer an inroad for spatial learning. Few past studies have directly contrasted the affordances of digital and concrete formats in children’s cognitive development: One study found that 4- to 6-yr-olds demonstrated significant improvement in solving a Tower of Hanoi task irrespective of the practice modality (touchscreen vs physical; Huber et al., 2016). However, the differential effects of using concrete versus digital materials to increase early spatial skills and facilitate math achievement are unclear.
We explored the effectiveness of a spatial puzzle assembly intervention across two formats (concrete and digital delivery). Three-year-olds (N=331; MAge=42.98 months; SD=3.24; 168 females) from both private and Head Start preschools were pre- and post-tested on the 2D- and 3D-Tests of Spatial Assembly (TOSA) (Verdine et al., 2017) and math (WJ: Applied Problems, TEMA). Spatial training on the 2D-TOSA instructed children to piece together different geometric forms into designs shown on a model image. An adult trainer (concrete-training) or character in the app (digital-training) corrected wrongly-placed puzzle pieces. Children were randomly assigned to one of the two training regimens (given 1x/week over 5 weeks) or a no-training control. We hypothesized that children with concrete-training would increase their spatial and math skills more than children with digital-training and this would be especially true for children from under-resourced backgrounds.
Although the model fit from the resulting multigroup latent variable path analysis was good (RMSEA=.02), the training effects were mixed. When controlling for general language ability (pretest vocabulary scores), both the concrete-training (B=.24, p<.001) and digital-training (B=.23, p<.001) increased under-resourced children’s performance more on the TOSA compared to the control group. Digital-training (but not concrete-training) improved Math scores compared to the control group (B=.11, p=.028). In contrast, there was no effect of either training on Spatial Assembly scores or Math scores for children from more advantaged backgrounds. (See Figure 1.)
Overall, early concrete and digital spatial assembly experiences seem to be beneficial for preschoolers’ spatial skill—and possibly mathematics skills—development, especially for under-resourced children. When designed according to principles for learning (Hirsh-Pasek et al., 2015), digital materials can be effective. However, because children’s transfer between 2D-representations and 3D-objects is challenging (Barr, 2010) combined with the limited 1x/week 5-week training, it is not surprising that transfer from either training to other spatial and math tasks was limited. Thus, both digital and concrete formats hold promise for promoting spatial skills in young children, but more work is needed to identify ways of facilitating deeper learning that can transfer to a broader range of spatial and STEM contexts.

Authors

• Corinne A. Bower, California State University - Los Angeles
  Presenting Author

• Laura J Zimmermann, Tech Play Collaborative

• Brian Nicholas Verdine

• Tamara Spiewak Toub, Temple University

• Roberta M Golinkoff, University of Delaware

• Kathy A Hirsh-Pasek, Temple University