An ongoing spatial intervention project in irish secondary schools for improved engineering education

Abstract

Spatial skills have been shown to strongly predict STEM attainment and can therefore be a determining factor in choosing to pursue high-paying engineering careers. This strong reliance on them particularly limits students with low spatial skills – a group over-represented by girls and students of low socioeconomic status. It has also been demonstrated that spatial training leads to meaningful improvements in skill development. In Ireland, as in most countries, spatial thinking is not explicitly taught at the pre-college level, even though it could influence students’ eventual career paths. Currently, only a person’s previous experiences outside the classroom influence skill development. In order to increase the number of students who select engineering and other STEM occupations as a career path, an explicit emphasis on training spatial thinking is likely to be very beneficial in precollege education. An established spatial intervention course was selected for delivery to secondary schools in Ireland. Through training and ongoing support, teachers’ spatial skills, and pedagogical content knowledge for spatial thinking are being developed to be shared with their students, leading to an increase in students’ spatial skill level and future employment opportunities.