Gestures in Geology: The Roles of Spatial Skills, Expertise, and Communicative Context

Spatial thinking is an essential part of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), domains that entail external spatial representations such as 2D graphics, 3D models, and--the focus here--gestures. University students (a) read aloud information about the geological concepts of strike and dip, (b) completed strike and dip tasks, and (c) explained these concepts to another student via audio and video. Gestural patterns varied across reading, audio, and video contexts in interaction with participant variables of spatial skill and prior geology coursework. Only novices gestured during reading, interpreted as novices' attempts to aid their own conceptual understanding of new information. All participant groups produced different gestural patterns in audio versus video contexts, suggesting the communicative intent of many gestures.

[1]  M. Alibali,et al.  Transitions in concept acquisition: using the hand to read the mind. , 1993, Psychological review.

[2]  Denis Newman,et al.  Telling what they know: The role of gesture and language in children's science explanations , 1993 .

[3]  L. Vierling,et al.  Learning Mathematics and Earth System Science…Via Satellite , 2006 .

[4]  C. Cervato,et al.  How Geoscientists Think and Learn , 2009 .

[5]  Stacy B. Ehrlich,et al.  The importance of gesture in children's spatial reasoning. , 2006, Developmental psychology.

[6]  I. Sigel,et al.  HANDBOOK OF CHILD PSYCHOLOGY , 2006 .

[7]  Terri Gullickson,et al.  Annals of Child Development , 1995 .

[8]  H. Thomas,et al.  Modeling growth and individual differences in spatial tasks. , 1993, Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development.

[9]  M. Stieff.  Mental rotation and diagrammatic reasoning in science , 2007 .

[10]  Kim A. Kastens,et al.  Epistemic Actions in Science Education , 2008, Spatial Cognition.

[11]  Thomas F. Shipley,et al.  Spatial Cognition VII, International Conference, Spatial Cognition 2010, Mt. Hood/Portland, OR, USA, August 15-19, 2010. Proceedings , 2010, Spatial Cognition.

[12]  Wilfried Brauer,et al.  Spatial Cognition III , 2003, Lecture Notes in Computer Science.

[13]  S. Goldin-Meadow,et al.  Making children gesture brings out implicit knowledge and leads to learning. , 2007, Journal of experimental psychology. General.

[14]  J. R. Landis,et al.  The measurement of observer agreement for categorical data. , 1977, Biometrics.

[15]  Merideth Leigh Gattis,et al.  Spatial schemas and abstract thought , 2001 .

[16]  F. J. Langdon,et al.  The Child's Conception of Space , 1967 .

[17]  Charles Goodwin,et al.  15 Environmentally Coupled Gestures , 2007 .

[18]  Wolff-Michael Roth.  Gestures: The Leading Edge in Literacy Development , 2004 .

[19]  Mary Hegarty,et al.  The Role of Gestures in Mental Animation , 2005, Spatial Cogn. Comput..

[20]  Performance on Piagetian horizontality and verticality tasks: Sex-related differences in knowledge of relevant physical phenomena. , 1984 .

[21]  S. Goldin-Meadow,et al.  Gesturing Gives Children New Ideas About Math , 2009, Psychological science.

[22]  R. Klatzky,et al.  Teachers’ gestures facilitate students’ learning: A lesson in symmetry , 2003 .

[23]  Daniel V. Lawless,et al.  Scientific investigations, metaphorical gestures, and the emergence of abstract scientific concepts , 2002 .

[24]  H Thomas,et al.  Observation Is Insufficient for Discovering that the Surface of Still Water Is Invariantly Horizontal , 1973, Science.

[25]  T. Ishikawa,et al.  Spatial thinking in the geosciences and cognitive sciences: A cross-disciplinary look at the intersection of the two fields , 2006 .

[26]  Adam E. Christensen,et al.  Spatial Foundations of Science Education: The Illustrative Case of Instruction on Introductory Geological Concepts , 2011 .

[27]  Susan Goldin-Meadow,et al.  Assessing knowledge conveyed in gesture : Do teachers have the upper hand ? , 1997 .

[28]  Martha W. Alibali,et al.  Raise your hand if you’re spatial: Relations between verbal and spatial skills and gesture production , 2007 .

[29]  L. S. Liben,et al.  How Students and Field Geologists Reason in Integrating Spatial Observations from Outcrops to Visualize a 3‐D Geological Structure , 2009 .

[30]  David W. Mogk,et al.  Earth and Mind: How Geologists Think and Learn about the Earth , 2006 .

[31]  Kim A. Kastens,et al.  Multiple Modes of Inquiry in Earth Science , 2008 .

[32]  S. Goldin-Meadow,et al.  Gesturing makes learning last , 2008, Cognition.

[33]  L. S. Liben.  Education for Spatial Thinking , 2007 .

[34]  Kim A. Kastens,et al.  Using Analogical Mapping to Assess the Affordances of Scale Models Used in Earth and Environmental Science Education , 2010, Spatial Cognition.

[35]  F. Rebelsky.  Adult Perception of the Horizontal , 1964, Perceptual and motor skills.

[36]  Kim A. Kastens,et al.  Research in Science Education: The Role of Gestures in Geoscience Teaching and Learning , 2008 .

[37]  Justine Cassell,et al.  Communicative Effects of Speech-Mismatched Gestures , 1994 .

[38]  Roger Bakeman,et al.  Analyzing Interaction: Sequential Analysis with SDIS and GSEQ , 1995 .

[39]  Lynn S. Liben,et al.  Illusory Tilt and Euclidean Schemes as Factors in Performance on the Water-Level Task , 1995 .

[40]  L. S. Liben.  Performance on Piagetian Spatial Tasks as a Function of Sex, Field Dependence, and Training. , 1978 .

[41]  Melissa Singer,et al.  The Role of Gesture in Meaning Construction , 2008 .

[42]  Ann V. McGillicuddy-De Lisi,et al.  Individual Differences in Adolescents' Horizontality Representation: Associations with Vocational Major and Gender. , 1988 .

[43]  Susan Goldin-Meadow,et al.  Gesture offers insight into problem-solving in adults and children , 2002, Cogn. Sci..

[44]  D. Lubinski,et al.  Importance of Assessing Spatial Ability in Intellectually Talented Young Adolescents: A 20-Year Longitudinal Study. , 2001 .

[45]  F. J. Langdon,et al.  The Child's Conception of Space , 1967 .

[46]  S. Goldin-Meadow,et al.  The mismatch between gesture and speech as an index of transitional knowledge , 1986, Cognition.

[47]  E. Wendy Saul,et al.  Crossing Borders in Literacy and Science Instruction: Perspectives on Theory and Practice , 2004 .