The spatial ability effect on pre-service teachers’ basic geometry content knowledge in relation to verbal reasoning

Abstract

Research in cognitive psychology suggests that cognitive factors such as spatial abilities and verbal reasoning are important in developing geometric knowledge of students in elementary school. However, these cognitive abilities are less explored in teacher education. The study adopted cross-sectional survey design to investigate relationships among knowledge types in geometry, and how spatial ability and verbal reasoning relate to and account for knowledge in basic shape and space among pre service teachers. A sample of 757 pre-service teachers from 12 public colleges of education in Ghana participated in the study. Cognitive tests on spatial ability, verbal reasoning and basic Geometry content knowledge were validated for the main data collection. The instrument was found to be reliable and achieved measurement invariant across gender and programmes offered by pre-service teachers. Descriptive statistics and structural equation modeling were employed to analyze and estimate model parameters to answer the research questions and hypotheses. Bootstrapping was conducted to determine significance of effect sizes in the relationship paths connecting spatial ability, verbal reasoning and basic Geometry content knowledge. The study found that pre-service teachers performed better in procedural and declarative tasks than in conditional tasks. Pre-service teachers also did better in 2-D tasks than in 3-D tasks. The declarative, conditional and procedural knowledge were found to be significantly interrelated in a way that defines pre-service teachers‟ content knowledge. From the structural equations, pre-service teachers‟ spatial ability significantly affected their basic Geometry content knowledge. Verbal reasoning was also found to intermediate the effect of spatial ability on basic Geometry content knowledge. Finally, the results of multigroup structural equation modeling show that the relationship among spatial ability, verbal reasoning and basic Geometry content knowledge was structurally invariant across programme of study but moderated by gender of pre-service teachers. Implications for the design of curriculum, teaching, learning and assessment tasks in basic geometry at colleges of education were discussed.