{"pk":26719,"title":"Does Experience with Physics Concepts Improve Mental Rotation Performance?","subtitle":null,"abstract":"STEM disciplines have been shown to positively impact an individual’s visuospatial skills (Kozhevnikov, 1999).The current study examines improvement in spatial thinking in physics undergraduate students over the course of a semester.Students completed the Shepard and Metzler (1971) task at two time points– beginning and end of a semester – where they wereasked to determine if two 3D figures were a match or mirror-images of each other. A Tobii X60 eye-tracker was used to recordeye movement as an indirect measure of cognitive strategy selection. Preliminary analysis show a significant improvement inmental rotation performance from time point 1 (M=31.867, SD=5.027) to time point 2 (M=35.333, SD=3.885) t(14)=-3.014,p=.009. A latent profile analysis will be used to model cognitive strategies selected at time points 1 and 2 and analyzed for sexdifferences. The findings of this study are important for understanding the underrepresentation of women in STEM.","language":"eng","license":{"name":"","short_name":"","text":null,"url":""},"keywords":[],"section":"Member Abstracts","is_remote":true,"remote_url":"https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4v28q5wj","frozenauthors":[{"first_name":"Rosalie","middle_name":"","last_name":"Odean","name_suffix":"","institution":"Florida International University","department":""},{"first_name":"Alina","middle_name":"","last_name":"Nazareth","name_suffix":"","institution":"Temple University","department":""},{"first_name":"Jessica","middle_name":"","last_name":"Bartley","name_suffix":"","institution":"Florida International University","department":""},{"first_name":"Eric","middle_name":"","last_name":"Brewe","name_suffix":"","institution":"Florida International University","department":""},{"first_name":"Angela","middle_name":"","last_name":"Laird","name_suffix":"","institution":"Florida International University","department":""},{"first_name":"Shannon","middle_name":"M.","last_name":"Pruden","name_suffix":"","institution":"Florida International University","department":""}],"date_submitted":null,"date_accepted":null,"date_published":"2016-01-01T18:00:00Z","render_galley":null,"galleys":[{"label":"PDF","type":"pdf","path":"https://journalpub.escholarship.org/cognitivesciencesociety/article/26719/galley/16355/download/"}]}