{"id":36134,"date":"2026-09-14T08:29:49","date_gmt":"2026-09-14T06:29:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/educationalevidence.com\/?p=36134"},"modified":"2026-09-14T08:33:35","modified_gmt":"2026-09-14T06:33:35","slug":"nora-newcombe-spatial-thinking-is-crucial-in-stem-education","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/educationalevidence.com\/en\/nora-newcombe-spatial-thinking-is-crucial-in-stem-education\/","title":{"rendered":"Nora Newcombe: \u201cSpatial Thinking is crucial in STEM Education\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Professor Nora S. Newcombe, one of the world\u2019s leading developmental psychologists and a distinguished scholar at Temple University<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

License Creative Commons <\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Antoni Hern\u00e1ndez-Fern\u00e1ndez<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Today we have the privilege of speaking with Professor Nora S. Newcombe<\/a>, one of the world\u2019s leading developmental psychologists and a distinguished scholar at Temple University. Her research has profoundly shaped our understanding of how children develop spatial thinking, memory, navigation, and the cognitive abilities that underpin learning across multiple domains.<\/p>\n

Professor Newcombe\u2019s work has shown that spatial skills are not fixed traits, but capacities that can be developed through experience and education \u2014 with important implications for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education. As schools worldwide seek to prepare students for increasingly complex technological environments, her insights offer valuable evidence and guidance on how cognitive development can inform teaching practice, particularly in the sciences, the arts, and technical fields.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
WHY THIS MATTERS FOR EDUCATORS<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Spatial ability is a distinct domain of intelligence, alongside the verbal and the mathematical \u2014 and it can predict learning, occupational choice, and career success.<\/p>\n

\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It is trainable at any age, but activities must be age-appropriate and genuinely enjoyable, not worksheets of rotation drills.<\/p>\n

\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Diagrams and graphs follow conventions that are not self-evident to students: teaching kids how to read them, arrows and all, pays off.<\/p>\n

\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Digital tools boost spatial thinking only when used deliberately, but only after foundational skills are in place, to avoid cognitive offloading too early.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

 <\/p>\n

For many people, intelligence is associated with language or mathematics. Why should educators pay more attention to spatial intelligence?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s actually very clear that intelligence is composed of three domains: one is verbal, or linguistic; a second is mathematical; and a third is spatial. That third domain is different from the other two, and yet it is just as important for thinking and intellectual functioning.<\/p>\n

You have argued that spatial thinking is fundamental not only for navigation but also for reasoning with graphs, diagrams, and scientific models. How important is spatial intelligence for learning in STEM fields?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Spatial Thinking is crucial in STEM Education. But I would caution against consider spatial intelligence as just navigation. That\u2019s a bit different from the kind of spatial thinking that matters in science. Most of the research on science and math learning has focused on small-scale spatial skills: thinking about objects you can hold, and about how objects relate to one another within a space that, even if you can\u2019t reach it, you can certainly see. That ability translates, once it becomes symbolic, into being able to read graphs and figures and so forth. I also think navigation makes a different kind of contribution, but there is much less research on that<\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n

Cognitive maps and mental rotation tasks have become classic tools in cognitive psychology. What do these tasks reveal about the developing mind of a child? Can children\u2019s scores on spatial intelligence predict their educational success?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mental rotation is certainly one popular task, but there are many other things you can do mentally that you can also do with physical objects \u2014 you can mentally fold them, slice them, and predict what they will look like in cross-section, and so on. All of these skills are a little different, and we still don\u2019t fully understand the extent to which they are separate or go together. Probably it\u2019s a bit of both, as is the case with most kinds of intellectual tests.<\/p>\n

Mental rotation is certainly one popular task, but there are many other things you can do mentally that you can also do with physical objects<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But to get to the second part of your question: at this point there is a very large body of evidence that these kinds of skills are related to learning at school, to occupational choice, and to occupational success. Some of that is correlational, but quite a lot of it now comes from longitudinal studies, and quite a lot from training or intervention studies, in which researchers try to improve these skills and look at the outcomes for science and math learning. So I think there is a powerful case to be made.<\/p>\n

If spatial skills are trainable, what are the most effective activities that schools can introduce to strengthen spatial reasoning from an early age?<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is an area of active research, but I\u2019ll give a few guidelines. One is that activities really need to be age-appropriate \u2014 what is right for a four-year-old is not going to be right for a fourteen-year-old. They should also ideally be enjoyable: I don\u2019t think you necessarily want to give children pages of mental rotation problems. They would probably rebel, and I\u2019m not sure it would have much effect. So a lot of people are working on playful but still structured activities that children can do to improve these skills.<\/a><\/span> I think it\u2019s important to realize that spatial skills don\u2019t come for free.<\/p>\n

What about classic toys and games?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yes \u2014 some of it is just classic toys and activities: playing with and designing model airplanes, building models of castles, doing jigsaw puzzles. Those kinds of things are great, as far as we can tell. Some of it can be quite fun. It\u2019s a different story, though, when it comes to the more school-oriented things, like reading diagrams or graphs.<\/p>\n

You really have to think before assuming that a particular symbol means a particular thing<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So, what about diagrams and reading graphs?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I think, especially with diagrams, teachers often assume they\u2019re just pictures \u2014 that kids already know how to \u2018read\u2019 them. But there are a lot of conventions associated with diagrams, and a lot of tips for making sense of them. One is that you have to read the text at the bottom; if you don\u2019t, you mostly won\u2019t understand the diagram. Another confusing thing about diagrams is that arrows can mean a lot of different things: an arrow can mean \u2018this happens before this,\u2019 or \u2018this causes that,\u2019 or it can simply be labeling something. You really have to think before assuming that a particular symbol means a particular thing. Those are just a few tips. Other researchers have written quite a lot about the full set of conventions, and some have even put together one- or two-day trainings for teachers on how to approach this, with sample lessons and so forth.<\/p>\n

Some students seem naturally good at visualizing objects and structures, while others struggle. How much of spatial ability is innate, and how much can be developed through practice?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The question of \u2018how much\u2019 is a very common one, but it\u2019s actually not quite the right question \u2014 it\u2019s not really what we want to know. It comes out of genetics and behavior genetics, and it\u2019s rooted in thinking about how your genes, and your biology more generally, set what we like to call a \u2018reaction range\u2019: basically, the lowest you can go even in a very unfavorable environment, and the highest you can go in a highly favorable one. I do think there is such a thing as a reaction range \u2014 I am never going to be a gifted opera singer, and I\u2019m not sure I\u2019ve made my peace with that. But within that range, we do know that you can improve a lot; you can reach the top of your own potential.<\/p>\n

Is it true, or a myth, that there are gender differences in spatial ability?<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is a topic of perennial fascination, and there are some differences, but they are more targeted and smaller than most people think. The one sex-related difference that is fairly large is in mental rotation: men do better than women on those tests as adults, by quite a lot. But that difference doesn\u2019t appear until well into childhood \u2014 it\u2019s not present early, and it increases as people get older. Another thing to keep in mind is that the difference is smaller, or doesn\u2019t exist at all, on tasks like mental folding or mental cross-sectioning. So there is a bit of a mystery here: why does this one test show this difference? We haven\u2019t solved that, but what I want to emphasize is that it\u2019s really quite isolated. When it comes to navigation \u2014 where we know less about the relationship to science and math learning \u2014 there are, as I said, some small differences too, but again they are quite small even in adulthood, and they are more evident in adulthood than in childhood. So I\u2019d frame the question a little differently: yes, something is happening here, but I don\u2019t think it\u2019s as important as people think.<\/p>\n

Digital technologies now allow students to interact with virtual reality, simulations, and 3D models. Do these computational tools offer unique opportunities for developing spatial intelligence or can cause cognitive offloading?<\/strong><\/p>\n

There are really two questions embedded here. One is whether these tools make effective educational or training aids, and I think the answer is yes, but only if they are carefully designed. As with diagrams, it doesn\u2019t come for free: having a flashy animation doesn\u2019t magically improve students\u2019 thinking. A lot of people have done research on this, and there are actually quite a lot of tips, and even big handbooks, on how to design these kinds of displays. So if you are a chemistry teacher, or any kind of teacher, my advice would be to look for a well-vetted, reputable program to use with your students. Offloading is a different question, and it depends on the domain \u2014 say, organic chemistry versus architecture.<\/p>\n

As with diagrams, it doesn\u2019t come for free: having a flashy animation doesn\u2019t magically improve students\u2019 thinking<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I\u2019ll talk about architecture: it\u2019s not that you can\u2019t do it yourself, and you do have to visualize in order to be creative or inventive. But if you want to develop architectural drawings and check that they work from different vantage points, and have something to show, computer-assisted design is very valuable. It\u2019s not that we shouldn\u2019t use it \u2014 but it\u2019s a tool that you need a skill to use correctly. So again, it\u2019s a great way to offload, once you already know what you\u2019re doing.<\/p>\n

There is growing interest in artificial intelligence in education. If students increasingly delegate spatial tasks to AI systems, what cognitive skills might they fail to develop?<\/strong><\/p>\n

An implicit part of what I just said is that if you offload too soon in the learning process, that ultimately is not good. I think it\u2019s the same for learning to write effective prose. We know it\u2019s also true for navigation: when you offload too much, too early, to your GPS \u2014 and never turn it off, never use it flexibly \u2014 that reduces your navigation skills. You might say, \u2018What does it matter? I always have my GPS.\u2019 But what happens if you\u2019re outside the range of a positioning signal, or your battery fails? There are certainly situations where it matters, and I think there are other reasons too, but I\u2019ll just point to those.<\/p>\n

Could there be a risk that technological assistance improves performance in the short term while weakening the underlying spatial abilities in the long term?<\/strong><\/p>\n

When you look at the history of invention, it\u2019s great to have a compass and not have to read the stars to find your way. That doesn\u2019t mean it isn\u2019t still nice to know how to read the stars \u2014 what if you forget your compass? A lot of things are like that.<\/p>\n

When you offload too much, too early, to your GPS \u2014 and never turn it off, never use it flexibly \u2014 that reduces your navigation skills<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Looking ahead, what do you think is the most important message that educators still fail to appreciate about spatial intelligence and its role in human learning?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I think the most important message is to stay curious. Try to find out more, do some reading, do some experimenting \u2014 some \u2018messing around,\u2019 so to speak, in your classroom. See what you can achieve. And if I may, there is a second important message, which is to deal with both your own anxiety and your students\u2019 anxiety. Quite a lot of people think they\u2019re bad at this kind of skill \u2014 and some people are. I\u2019m not saying we\u2019re all equally good and should just feel great about ourselves. But one of the things that gets in the way of improving is feeling anxious about how bad you are at it. If you weren\u2019t a strong reader, you might work with a tutor, or read something simpler before tackling more complex prose. You might feel a little discouraged if you feel behind, but what you should do is work hard at it \u2014 because if you can\u2019t read in our society, you\u2019re going to be in trouble. So it is important to work on this skill if you have difficulties with it, but feeling anxious, and therefore not doing it, is not the solution.<\/p>\n

Finally, what about reading? Is reading related to spatial skills?<\/strong><\/p>\n

No, I think reading is something quite different. There are a few books that are very spatial, or that depend heavily on drawings or imagery, but I would say most books call on a different skill, one that is mostly verbal and communicative.<\/p>\n

Thank you very much, Nora. It was a pleasure for the readers of Educational Evidence<\/em>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

My pleasure, thank you.<\/p>\n

\n
Further Reading<\/h6>\n

Readers who want to follow up on the ideas raised in this interview \u2014 particularly the multidisciplinary turn in navigation and spatial-cognition research \u2014 may want to look at a recent open access Professor Newcombe\u2019s coedited volume:<\/p>\n

Newcombe, N. S., & Cheng, K. (Eds.). (2026). Challenges in navigation research: Mapping new directions.<\/em> Springer. https:\/\/link.springer.com\/book\/10.1007\/978-3-032-20563-6<\/a><\/span> (open access)<\/p>\n

For a full list of publications and ongoing projects, visit Professor Newcombe\u2019s page at Temple University: <\/em>https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/newcombe\/<\/p>\n

Spatial Intelligence and Learning Center (SILC):\u00a0 <\/em>https:\/\/www.spatiallearning.org\/<\/p>\n

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Source:\u00a0educational EVIDENCE<\/strong><\/p>\n

Rights:\u00a0Creative Commons<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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