A rationale for developing spatial skills: in a design environment

The relationships between various cognitive characteristics and design creativity provide the necessity for consideration for design education. It can be argued that constructive perception ability that combines perception and conception and basic ability in visual reasoning composed of visual analysis, synthesis and representation in iterative nature are equally related with creative design ability. In a large study that was conducted to develop a test of spatial ability, subject matter experts (SMEs), drawn from both industry and academe, identified a number of subtests relevant to specific spatial skills required by designers. Spatial ability is a construct generally considered to comprise of several spatial factors often called elements or components. However, the literature is divided on the number and how best to describe them. In a lead-in study to the larger study, 194 design students took part in a trial to evaluate a number of these subtests which were being considered for the larger test. The interest in subtests was part of the process of establishing spatial factors. The performance of novice designers on three of these subtests is reported in this paper. The three subtests were ranked highly by the SMEs. The first measured 2D to 3D concepts (BR), the second was concerned with mental rotation (MR) and the third assessed the ability to visualize sectional views (MC). The results of the trial demonstrated that design students were not competent in the skills measured by these subtests with performances falling below expectations. Mean scores achieved were 57% (BR), 53% (MR) and 49% (MC). In view of the importance of spatial ability to the design process, there are implications from these results for design education. The methodology used and possible explanations for these findings are discussed. Recommendations to improve performance are also suggested