Using Courseware Instruction to Improve Junior High School Students’ Spatial Visualization Skills

This study basically focused on the use of instruction to assist Junior High School (JHS 1) students at Dodowa Presbyterian Basic School (Ghana), to achieve high spatial visualization skills which will eventually translate into their mathematics achievement. The test instrument used for the data collection was an adapted form of the Middle Grades Mathematics Project (MGMP) spatial visualization test which comprised of 40 items with an internal consistency reliability of 0.81. The simple random sampling technique was used to assign 50 students to control and experimental groups. Pretest-posttest control group design was employed for the study. A paired-sample t-test and split plot ANOVA were used to analyze the data. The results showed that even though there was some improvement in spatial visualization skills across board (both control and experimental groups), there was a statistically significant improvement in spatial visualization skills among the experimental group. The study also indicated that there were no gender differences in spatial visualization skills both at the pretest and posttest levels.