Developing A Virtual Reality Based Spatial Visualization Assessment Instrument

The computer graphics profession, particularly the educational component, takes into account a person’s spatial abilities as a means for designing effective instructional experiences and assessments. Typical assessments examine such abilities as mental rotations, spatial visualization, and spatial perception. Spatial visualization skills relative to a cutting plane passing through an object is critical in the use of in many computer graphics software tools. This ability is widely considered to be a significant predictor of probability of a person’s success in the computer graphics vocation. The Mental Cutting Test (MCT) is an assessment instrument that is commonly used to measure spatial visualization skills. This instrument is currently available only in paper-and-pencil format. However, the nature of the human ability being measured is such that the paper-and-pencil format currently used has no mapping to the target construct domain – namely 3D computer graphics in the real world. This lack of authenticity puts into serious question not only the perceived validity (face validity) of the test, but also the purposes for which test scores from the MCT are put to use (construct validity). In an effort to minimize these issues, the cognitive psychology and computer graphics communities have developed virtual reality-based versions of a mental rotations instrument to examine various constructs. But a mental rotations assessment does not provide a complete coverage of a person’s spatial abilities. This paper focuses on the development and methodology for pilot testing a working prototype of a virtual reality-based version of a spatial abilities assessment instrument which uses the MCT as a model.