CHAPTER FOUR Spatial Thinking and STEM Education: When, Why, and How? David H. Uttal and Cheryl A. Cohen Contents 1. Introduction 148 2. STEM Learning and Spatial Training: A Skeptical First Look 151 3. What is Spatial Thinking? 152 4. Relations between Spatial Thinking and STEM Achievement and Attainment 153 4.1. Moving Beyond Zero-Order Correlations 154 5. Spatial Cognition and Expert Performance in STEM Disciplines 157 5.1. Spatial Cognition and Expert Performance in Geology 157 5.2. Spatial Cognition and Expert Performance in Medicine and Dentistry 159 5.3. Spatial Cognition and Expert Performance in Chemistry 160 5.4. Spatial Cognition and Expert Performance in Physics 161 5.5. Interim Summary 161 6. The Nature of Expertise in Spatially Demanding STEM Disciplines 162 6.1. Mental Representations that Support Chess Expertise 162 6.2. Mental Representations that Support Chemistry Expertise 164 6.3. Mental Representations that Support Expertise in Geometry 164 6.4. Mental Representations that Support Expertise in Radiology 165 6.5. When Might Spatial Abilities Matter in Expert Performance? 166 6.6. A Foil: Expertise in Scrabble 167 6.7. Interim Summary 167 7. The Role of Spatial Abilities in Early STEM Learning 168 8. The Malleability of Spatial Thinking 169 8.1. Meta-Analysis of the Effects of Spatial Training 170 8.2. Is Spatial Training Powerful Enough to Improve STEM Attainment? 174 9. Models of Spatial Training for STEM 175 10. Conclusions: Spatial Training Really Does Have the Potential to Improve STEM Learning 177 Acknowledgements 178 References 178 Psychology of Learning and Motivation, Volume 57 Ó 2012 Elsevier Inc. ISSN 0079-7421, DOI: 10.1016/B978-0-12-394293-7.00004-2 All rights reserved. 147