Assessing Spatial and Quantitative Reasoning Abilities in Six-Year-Old School Children: A Comparative Study in Lahore, Pakistan

Abstract

Spatial and quantitative reasoning abilities are important building blocks to navigate and understand our surroundings. Various psychologists had conflict on the onset and the age at which these two reasoning abilities become fully developed. This research paper highlights how spatial reasoning abilities prosper at the age of six years old children and how they imagine a two dimensional object using spatial reasoning ability into a three dimensional picture and answer the related relevant questions of the sample. The study examines the development level of spatial and quantitative reasoning abilities of school children (boys and girls) present at the age of six years. A quantitative study was conducted under a positivist paradigm approach involving a semi structured questionnaire; conducted with a sample of 200 (boys and girls) students of class 1 from LDA Model High school Allama Iqbal Town and The Punjab School, Johar Town campus using simple random sampling. The results were analyzed using descriptive statistics as frequencies and percentages in cross tabulations, while Pearson correlation was applied between spatial and quantitative reasoning abilities to find out the relationship between them. Many psychologists had conflicts about the age of children about the onset development of spatial reasoning ability. Therefore, the current study results are significant because they reveal that school children at the age of six have higher level of spatial reasoning abilities which is against Piaget's claim that spatial reasoning is achieved at the end of the concrete operational stage. Very few children had achieved quantitative reasoning abilities. The study concludes that quantitative reasoning development at the age of six is comparatively slower to spatial reasoning ability. The children at the age of six had middle level of quantitative reasoning ability.