The development of student spatial orientation through the use of 3D graphics

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to determine to what extent the use of 3D graphics in the educational process improves the spatial orientation skills of secondary school students. The research follows a qualitative approach of experimental type, the population is constituted by 300 students of Secondary Education of which through a simple random sampling 25 students were chosen. Four sessions of 50 minutes each have been developed, in which three-dimensional models were used, in order to determine if spatial skills are developed. A psychometric pre-test and post-test of spatial reasoning was taken in order to determine how much the spatial skills of the selected sample members are developed based on the measurement of five criteria: Construction of three-dimensional objects (intermediate level), Construction of three-dimensional objects (advanced level), Rotation of objects from references (intermediate level), Rotation of objects from references (advanced level) and deconstruction of three-dimensional objects. For the data analysis, the data from the scores obtained by the students in both the pre-test and the post-test are processed. The results allow us to visualize that the use of 3D graphics in the teaching-learning processes allows us to improve spatial orientation skills to a great extent. The result is evidenced in the increase of the total scores obtained in the post-test in comparison with the results of the pre-test. Likewise, an increase from 47.9% to 75.1% of items answered correctly was observed on average, which was corroborated with the Student's t-test that gave a P value of less than 0.05, demonstrating the reliability of the research developed and therefore significantly improving spatial orientation skills in students through the use of 3D graphics technology.