Journal for Geometry and Graphics, Vol. 3, No. 2, pp. 211-218 (1999)

Design of Modified Mental Rotations Test and its Error Analysis

Kumiko Shiina, Kenjiro Suzuki

Research Division, The National Center for University Entrance
Examinations, Tokyo 153-8501, Japan
email: shiina@rd.dnc.ac.jp, ksuzuki@idea.c.u-tokyo.ac.jp

Abstract: A new version of the MRT (M-MRT) was designed by modifying the original MRT (V-MRT) in three ways. 1. The structural questions that may evoke strategies other than mental rotation were excluded. 2. Each part was composed of the same three-dimensional objects. 3. In order to make the difficulty of each part equal, the order of the questions was changed on the basis of the simulation of the data of the V-MRT. The M-MRT was administered to 250 subjects and the data was analyzed. There were significant differences of the mean scores in the M-MRT between sexes and majors. The mean score in the M-MRT was significantly larger than that in the V-MRT as for the low score groups. The larger mean score in the V-MRT in the low score groups might be due to the increase of the solving speed caused by the changes in the design of the M-MRT. The mean points of the complete-subjects were almost the same between questions which belong to different parts but are composed of the same objects. This suggests that the difficulties of each part are almost same. The increase of the mean score is considered to be caused by the higher solving speed for Part 2.

Keywords: spatial ability, mental rotations, error analysis

Classification (MSC2000): 51N05

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