Features of spatial thinking ability in students of medical university
Loading...
Date
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Харківський національний медичний університет
Abstract
Medical students have higher spatial ability than educational sciences students that is closely related to completion of anatomy course as one of main instruments of ST development. However, even medical students who finished anatomy still made mistakes in MRT, showing only 90% result, moreover, individual results vary depending on personal ST level thus it’s recommended to introduce additional methods of ST development in educational process. The problem of spatial memory can be one of the major reasons why medical students perform very badly in preclinical and clinical courses but do well in other aspects. Detecting the students with low visual spatial abilities may become a great help for both their academic achievements and future professional activity.
Description
Spatial thinking (ST) is the ability to represent the relative positions of objects, processes or phenomena in space, using the properties of space as a vehicle for structuring problems and finding solutions (National Research Council, USA, 2006). For medical practitioners and students the ability to mentally manipulate objects creating 3-D models from available 1- or 2-D images can be critical for both studying process and diagnostics of various states, especially in surgery, dentistry, prosthetics and many other fields of medicine. For example, leading dental school assess ST on Dental Admission Test or with practical exercises, like tooth modelling (Newcombe N.S., Shipley T.F., 2014). However, while understanding the importance of ST for medical students, the most of educational systems don’t provide enough of special courses for its development (Hegarty M., 2014), thus proving the need of its research.
The aim of research was to study the current level of spatial thinking in medical students.
Keywords
Citation
Elijah G. Features of spatial thinking ability in students of medical university / G. Elijah // Фізіологія – медицині, фармації та педагогіці: актуальні проблеми та сучасні досягнення : V Всеукраїнська наукова конференція студентів та молодих вчених з фізіології з міжнародною участю, Харків, 16 травня 2018 р. / ред. колегія: Д. І. Маракушин [та ін.]. – Харків, 2018. – С. 11.