About the Spatial reasoning test
This spatial reasoning test covers understanding, reasoning, and remembering the spatial relationships among objects or space. These skills play an important role in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) and show candidates' analytical thinking skills in terms of objects and space.
Spatial reasoning skills are found to be valuable in STEM-related careers. For example, an astronomer must visually imagine the structures of a solar system, and the path of the bodies within it. An engineer must visually imagine the motions of the parts of a machine or building that they are assigned to work with. Chemists must be able to understand abstract models representing the spatial dynamics of molecules. There is also evidence that spatial reasoning is involved in many aspects of processing numbers and calculating in math. Even in physics, spatial visualization ability is crucial for solving kinematic problems.
There are four common types of spatial reasoning abilities which include spatial visualization, mental folding, and mental rotation. These abilities have unique properties and are important to various types of tasks encountered in professional life. For example, spatial visualization is characterized as complicated multi-step manipulations of spatially presented information. Mental rotation is the ability to manipulate and rotate 2D or 3D objects in space quickly and accurately.
These three abilities are mediated and supported by a fourth spatial cognitive factor known as spatial working memory. Spatial working memory is the ability to temporarily store a certain amount of visual-spatial memories under attentional control in order to complete a task. This cognitive ability mediates individual differences in the capacity for higher-level spatial abilities such as mental rotation.
The test covers these common types of spatial reasoning abilities to help you identify candidates with strong skills. This is a great test to include to check analytical skills.