A RESEARCH ON THE VISUOSPATIAL SKILLS OF FIRST YEAR ARCHITECTURE STUDENTS

Spatial cognition and skills are of critical importance for architecture. During their education, architecture students are expected to use and develop visuospatial skills to generate/construct, retain, rotate, and manipulate space mentally and physically through physical and digital representations. This study was designed and conducted to fill the gap in researches on the first-year architecture students' spatial skill evaluated by means of neuropsychological tests. The goal of the study was to investigate the potential connections between the first architecture students' visuospatial skills and art training or education prior to the university education. 128 students participated to the research voluntarily. For visuospatial skills Raven Standard Progressive Matrices (RSPM) test was administrated. The findings demonstrated that first year architecture students' performances on neuropsychological tests assessing visuospatial skills were compatible with the norm scores and their cognitive development level. Participants with art training prior to university performed better in RSPM total, and RSPM subtest E. The results supported the previous studies claiming that art training and/or education have a positive impact on spatial cognition and visuospatial skills.