The Purdue Visualization of Rotations Test

Abstract

This paper probes the relationship between the psychometric construct known as ‘spatial ability’ and students’ performance in introductory chemistry courses. It examines some of the early literature on the evolution of the concept of spatial ability, reviews the results of research on the relationship between success (or failure) in introductory chemistry courses and students’ spatial ability, and describes a spatial ability test known as The Purdue Visualization of Rotations (ROT) test that has been shown to be among the spatial ability tests whose results are least likely to be complicated by analytical processing.