Landmark Positioning on a Map: An Alternative Measure of Spatial Ability for Identifying Students Who May Benefit From Learning Gross Anatomy with Virtual Reality

Research has shown an inconsistent relationship between spatial abilities and learning outcomes from virtual anatomical tools. Instructors must understand this relationship to select appropriate resources for diverse learners. To identify appropriate tests for measuring spatial ability and evaluate the effectiveness of virtual anatomical resources, this study compared 96 students' visuospatial ability (measured using the Mental Rotation Task [MRT] and Landmark Position on a Map [LPM] tests) with learning outcomes from experimental anatomy sessions and undergraduate anatomical course examinations. During experimental sessions, students took a test after a brief instructional session using one virtual resource: a monoscopic resource (e.g., digital photographs or a rotatable three-dimensional [r3D] specimen) or a stereoscopic virtual reality (VR) specimen. A negative linear relationship was found between MRT scores and students in Session B using VR with controllers (r = -.56 to -.29), and LPM scores and students using VR (r = -.71 to .39) and r3D (r = -.41 to .43). There was a positive linear relationship between MRT scores and all other resources (r = .01 to .91), and course examination scores (r = .25 to .42, p = .05). Although the results were inconsistent, correlations were found between spatial ability and outcomes using both the MRT and LPM. The LPM might be better suited for determining which learners would benefit from VR. The results suggest that monoscopic resources best support high spatial abilities, and stereoscopic resources best support low spatial abilities. These findings support accounting for diverse learner visuospatial abilities when selecting resources.