Consistency of spatial ability performance in children, adolescents, and young adults

BackgroundSpatial abilities are essential cognitive skills for many aspects of our everyday life that develop substantially throughout childhood and adolescence. While there are numerous measurement tools to evaluate these abilities, many of them have been designed for specific age groups hampering...

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Main Authors: Christina Morawietz, Nils Dumalski, Anna Maria Wissmann, Jonas Wecking, Thomas Muehlbauer
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Frontiers Media S.A. 2024-02-01
Series:Frontiers in Psychology
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1365941/full
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author Christina Morawietz
Nils Dumalski
Anna Maria Wissmann
Jonas Wecking
Thomas Muehlbauer
author_facet Christina Morawietz
Nils Dumalski
Anna Maria Wissmann
Jonas Wecking
Thomas Muehlbauer
author_sort Christina Morawietz
collection DOAJ
description BackgroundSpatial abilities are essential cognitive skills for many aspects of our everyday life that develop substantially throughout childhood and adolescence. While there are numerous measurement tools to evaluate these abilities, many of them have been designed for specific age groups hampering comparability throughout development. Thus, we determined test–retest-reliability and minimal detectable change for a set of tests that evaluate spatial ability performance in their variety in youth and compared them to young adults.MethodsChildren (age: 11.4 ± 0.5 years, n = 26), adolescents (age: 12.5 ± 0.7 years, n = 22), and young adults (age: 26.1 ± 4.0 years, n = 26) performed a set of five spatial ability tests twice, 20 min apart: Paper Folding Test (PFT), Mental Rotation Test (MRT), Water Level Task (WLT), Corsi Block Test (CBT), and Numbered Cones Run (NCR). Relative and absolute test–retest reliability was determined by calculating the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC3,1) and the standard error of measurement (SEM), respectively. Further, the minimal detectable change (MDC95%) was calculated to identify clinically relevant changes between repeated measurements.ResultsIrrespective of test, reliability was “excellent” (i.e., ICC3,1 ≥ 0.75) in all age cohorts and the SEM values were rather small. The MDC95% values needed to identify relevant changes in repeated measurements of spatial ability performance ranged between 0.8 and 13.9% in children, 1.1 and 24.5% in adolescents, and 0.7 and 20.8% in young adults.ConclusionThe determined values indicate that the investigated set of tests is reliable to detect spatial ability performance in healthy children, adolescents, and young adults.
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spelling doaj.art-5d61723660914a78813f53dea62d75e02024-02-28T04:30:49ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Psychology1664-10782024-02-011510.3389/fpsyg.2024.13659411365941Consistency of spatial ability performance in children, adolescents, and young adultsChristina MorawietzNils DumalskiAnna Maria WissmannJonas WeckingThomas MuehlbauerBackgroundSpatial abilities are essential cognitive skills for many aspects of our everyday life that develop substantially throughout childhood and adolescence. While there are numerous measurement tools to evaluate these abilities, many of them have been designed for specific age groups hampering comparability throughout development. Thus, we determined test–retest-reliability and minimal detectable change for a set of tests that evaluate spatial ability performance in their variety in youth and compared them to young adults.MethodsChildren (age: 11.4 ± 0.5 years, n = 26), adolescents (age: 12.5 ± 0.7 years, n = 22), and young adults (age: 26.1 ± 4.0 years, n = 26) performed a set of five spatial ability tests twice, 20 min apart: Paper Folding Test (PFT), Mental Rotation Test (MRT), Water Level Task (WLT), Corsi Block Test (CBT), and Numbered Cones Run (NCR). Relative and absolute test–retest reliability was determined by calculating the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC3,1) and the standard error of measurement (SEM), respectively. Further, the minimal detectable change (MDC95%) was calculated to identify clinically relevant changes between repeated measurements.ResultsIrrespective of test, reliability was “excellent” (i.e., ICC3,1 ≥ 0.75) in all age cohorts and the SEM values were rather small. The MDC95% values needed to identify relevant changes in repeated measurements of spatial ability performance ranged between 0.8 and 13.9% in children, 1.1 and 24.5% in adolescents, and 0.7 and 20.8% in young adults.ConclusionThe determined values indicate that the investigated set of tests is reliable to detect spatial ability performance in healthy children, adolescents, and young adults.https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1365941/fullvisual-spatial abilitiesreliabilityreproducibilitypractical relevanceyouth
spellingShingle Christina Morawietz
Nils Dumalski
Anna Maria Wissmann
Jonas Wecking
Thomas Muehlbauer
Consistency of spatial ability performance in children, adolescents, and young adults
Frontiers in Psychology
visual-spatial abilities
reliability
reproducibility
practical relevance
youth
title Consistency of spatial ability performance in children, adolescents, and young adults
title_full Consistency of spatial ability performance in children, adolescents, and young adults
title_fullStr Consistency of spatial ability performance in children, adolescents, and young adults
title_full_unstemmed Consistency of spatial ability performance in children, adolescents, and young adults
title_short Consistency of spatial ability performance in children, adolescents, and young adults
title_sort consistency of spatial ability performance in children adolescents and young adults
topic visual-spatial abilities
reliability
reproducibility
practical relevance
youth
url https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1365941/full
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