Spatial orientation and effectiveness of solving written tasks in the cycling exam

Pupils develop their spatial cognition skills gradually and slowly. They have guided work with maps in the 4th grade, which continues in the 5th grade. They also do theoretical part of bicycle license test in the 4th grade, preparing them for the practical part of the test in the 4th and 5th grade. The theoretical part of my master’s thesis deals with the explanation of the spatial cognition terminology and teaching directional skills. I also explained and described the procedure of bicycle license tests in Slovenia, the Netherlands, Great Britain and Austria, as well as characteristics of visual material in their study material. My master’s thesis was based on five goals: (1) to find out what are spatial cognition skills of pupils in the 4th and 5th grade, regarding their known surroundings, (2) to find out if there is any statistically significant correlation between spatial cognition skills and test results of the theoretical part of bicycle license test, (3) to analyze visual material in written tasks of the bicycle license test, (4) to find out if there is any statistically significant correlation between success at the test and different kinds of visual material, and (5) to find out if there is any statistically significant correlation between the final grade at Mathematics and Environmental Science and the success at written tasks of the bicycle license test. Our research included 108 pupils of a chosen elementary school in Dolenjska Region. We used the causal nonexperimental method of research. We gathered the data using interviews technique, tests technique and analyses of visual material. The results have shown that there are no differences between pupils in the 4th and 5th grade regarding their spatial cognition skills. Pupils in the 5th grade were better at map drawing. They all have most problems with positioning, distances, sizes and with considering other map elements, namely the title, the author, the scales, the legend etc. They gave most emphasis on the objects at the beginning and end of the way. Our research has proved that spatial cognition does not influence pupils’ success at the written theoretical part of bicycle license test. At the same time, the results have shown, that most of the 4th and 5th-grade pupils were unsuccessful at the test. There was no correlation between success at written tasks and the reality of visual material of that tasks. There was a statistically significant correlation between pupils’ success in written tasks and their final grade of the previous year at Environmental Science and Mathematics. The better their final grades were, the higher were the results of the bicycle license test