The Analysis of Concept on The Rotation of The Earth of Elementary Students According to Difference of Spatial Ability

초등학생의 공간능력 수준차이에 따른 지구자전에 관한 개념 분석

The purpose of this study is to find how elementary students who have different spatial ability affects their understandings on the concept of the rotation of the earth. In order to perform this study, four 5th grade students were picked out of 85 students in Seoul. They had the same conceptual achievement on the movement of celestial bodies but had different spatial abilities. The results of this study were as follows : Regardless of their spatial ability, they understand how day and night are performed, and understand the fact that diurnal motions of moon are related to the rotation of the earth. Also, the students who had higher spatial abilities showed better understanding on the concept of the rotation of the earth and understood the reconstructed concepts in stereoscopic space. But the students who had lower spatial abilities did not fully understand the concept of the rotation of the earth and just memorized them as fragmentary concepts. As for the gender differences, the boy students who had higher spatial ability explained the concept clearly and the others who had lower spatial ability had difficulty in understanding the rotation direction of the earth related with the diurnal movement of celestial bodies. In the same manner, the girl students who had higher spatial ability explained the concepts concretely and the others who had lower spatial ability had difficulty in explaining the concepts by operating them stereoscopically. Therefore, developing teaching methods and studying data and so on, for the girl students, they should be trained to operate the stereoscopic space directly, and for the boy students, they should learn to think over objects with multi-viewpoints. And then the spatial ability on the movement of celestial bodies would be expected to be improved.