Investigating the effect of architectural education on spatial cognition in primary school children

The effectiveness of many non-architectural trainings, such as art, mathematics, and geometry, on childrenchr('39')s spatial cognition has been demonstrated in research. But, due to the relationship between problem-solving ability and spatial cognition, and considering that architecture is essentially a problem-solving process, can architectural education affect spatial cognition in primary school children?

The aim of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of architecture education on spatial cognition of primary school children.

The method of this research was a quasi-experimental with pretest-posttest design and control group. The statistical population was primary school children in Tehran in 1398. 5 schools with multi-stage clustering method from north, south, east, west and center of Tehran (regions 1, 8, 16, 6 and 22 out of 22 regions) and in class, 12 people from each school according to gender and the educational level were selected randomly (60 people in total). Children were tested before training. Then, the experimental group was trained for 12 sessions of 3 hours. Then, both groups were tested. The test used was one-way analysis of covariance.

Findings showed that architectural education is effective on spatial cognition. This effect is used for spatial orientation (P value= 0/034), spatial visualization (P value= 0/004), image reconstruction (P value= 0/037) and spatial cognition (P value= 0/001) Is meaningful.

The results indicate the effectiveness of architectural education in spatial cognition and its components, especially the spatial visualization, in primary school children.