A Game-Based Solution to the Lack of Training and Assessment Opportunities for Spatial Reasoning

Abstract

Spatial reasoning is an important skill that people use on a daily basis. There is also strong evidence that people with enhanced spatial reasoning skills are more likely to pursue successful careers related to Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM). Spatial reasoning skills are also malleable, which suggests that spatial reasoning training and assessment could be used to enhance academic outcomes in STEM. However, there are relatively few readily accessible training or assessment opportunities for spatial reasoning. Commercial video games should be adapted to create more spatial reasoning training environments. Video games provide unique affordances that support training and learning, including: (1) delivering the appropriate level of challenge and (2) the ease of assessment integration. I found evidence that there is a relationship between performance in Optica, a mobile-puzzle game, and spatial reasoning skills among middle-school students. Specifically, I discovered a relationship between the number of levels completed in Optica and score on the PSVT: R by comparing multiple linear regression models with Akaike Information Criteria. Thus, Optica has shown potential as a suitable virtual environment for training and assessing spatial reasoning skills. Although there were limitations to this study, they can be remedied by updates to the design of the game, telemetry collection, and enhanced experimental design. I believe that Optica should be iterated upon to develop it into a fully-fledged game environment for training and assessing spatial reasoning skills, which will benefit many areas of STEM simultaneously.