Education Commons^™

An Examination Of The Role Of Spatial Ability In The Process Of Problem Solving In Chemical Engineering, Sheryl Sorby, Gavin Duffy, Norman Loney

Articles

Engineers often communicate with one another through drawings or sketches and understanding technical information through graphical representations is a skill necessary for engineering practice. Well-developed spatial skills are known to be important to understanding technical drawings and are therefore, important to success in engineering. Unfortunately, of all cognitive processes, spatial skills show robust gender differences, favouring males, which could contribute to the underrepresentation of women in engineering. In this research, we administered a test of spatial cognition to students enrolled in a common 3rd year course in chemical engineering . In a second session, students were given a set of …