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Abstract: The progress of neuroscience and the understanding of children's styles of thinking are opening up new teaching styles that take into account differences in individual cognitive perception. Students can be classified into three distinctive perceptive types, according to the pronounced activity of one cerebral hemisphere in their thinking and information processing: left-hemisphere, right-hemisphere, and integrative type that does not exhibit a considerable dominance of one particular hemisphere. The purpose of the research was to establish differences in the 3D modeling encouraged progression of spatial ability between the left-hemisphere, right-hemisphere and integrative types of students. Computerized 3D modeling employed during technical extra-curricular activity in lower secondary school (grades 6 to 9) may affect the spatial ability of students, which according to other studies, appears to be predominantly connected with the right brain hemisphere. Research was conducted among a variety of lower secondary school students across Slovenia aged 11 15 years. Data on spatial ability and its development was collected using a hybrid spatial intelligence test conducted on two separate occasions, while assessment of the learning perception type of students depending on hemispheric dominance was obtained using a self-evaluation questionnaire. The 3D modeling of technical objects and objects drawn in orthographic or isometric projection was done with the software Trimble SketchUp.
Keywords: cognitive development, spatial ability, 3D modeling
Published in DKUM: 19.12.2017; Views: 1132; Downloads: 118
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Abstract: Integration/differentiation of mental processes is major mechanism of development. Developmental theories ascribe intellectual development to it. In psychometric theory, Spearman’s law of diminishing returns postulates that increasing g allows increasing differentiation of cognitive abilities, because increased mental power allows variable investment in domain-specific learning. Empirical evidence has been inconsistent so far, with some studies supporting and others contradicting this mechanism. This state of affairs is due to a developmental phenomenon: Both differentiation and strengthening of relations between specific processes and g may happen but these changes are phase-specific and ability-specific, depending upon the developmental priorities in the formation of g in each phase. We present eight studies covering the age span from 4 to 85 years in support of this phenomenon. Using new powerful modeling methods we showed that differentiation and binding of mental processes in g occurs in cycles. Specific processes intertwine with g at the beginning of cycles when they are integrated into it; when well established, these processes may vary with increasing g, reflecting its higher flexibility. Representational knowledge, inductive inference and awareness of it, and grasp of logical constraints framing inference are the major markers of g, first intertwining with in their respective cycles and differentiating later during the periods of 2–6, 7–11, and 11–20 years, respectively. The implications of these findings for an overarching cognitive developmental/differential theory of human mind are discussed.
Keywords: intelligence, cognitive development, individual differences, integration, differentiation, awareness
Published in DKUM: 21.06.2017; Views: 1094; Downloads: 388
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