Scientific visualization ability development

As a method for improving the scientific visual ability of students, the authors have used computer graphics based systems for student practice and the analysis of student responses. The final goal is to develop an effective instructional system by analyzing the underlying knowledge mechanism and reconstructing it for visualization problems. This paper describes the results of the comparison of student performance for 2-3D figure transformation problems under different conditions. The results were used to investigate the sources and causes of projeciton or solid construction errors for multiview problems. Comparative data for RAR (Right Answer Rate) and TOT (Time On Task), and KOT (Key Operation Times) for student solutions were examined for selected, difficult problems. The errors and the suspected causes of the student´s difficulty in solving these problems were related to the student prior knowledge of descriptive geometry