Identifying Student Communication Strategies Involving Spatial Information

Spatial ability and effective communication are considered important skills in the engineering and technology fields. However, little research has been done to assess how engineering or technology students communicate spatial information. Effective spatial information can help engineers and technologists describe their design, as well as how parts of a design are assembled into a final shape. In this study, researchers aimed at identifying strategies used between two peers, referred to as a dyad, as they communicate information to transform a 3D virtual model into a physical scale model. The focus of analysis is on the metacognitive strategies dyads used to identify difficulties in communication. A quasi-experimental design was used to observe the processes used by 6 dyads of graduate students from engineering technology and technology fields. Quantitative and qualitative analyses were used to identify common communication patterns and determine when participants decided on a change of communication strategy. Results show that only two out of six dyads reproduced the model correctly. Successful teams developed an assembly strategy prior to building and used task monitoring to check for misplaced pieces. Less successful teams relied more on repeated instructions to manage miscommunication.