Teaching the Understanding of Pictorial Spatial Relationships to Nigerian Secondary School Students

Abstract

Two experiments were carried out to compare the effectiveness of different ways of producing the frames in a remedial self-instructional program intended to improve the ability of Nigerian secondary students to understand spatial relationships in pictures. In one experiment with Yoruba students, it was demonstrated that the use of stereoscopic pictures brought about an improvement in performance, whereas planoscopic pictures and models did not. In contrast, a second experiment with Hausa students showed that three programs involving stereoscopic diagrams, planoscopic diagrams, and planoscopic diagrams in conjunction with models, all brought about both short- and long-term improvements. There were no significant short- or long-term differences between the effects of the programs. Neither was there a significant decline in the learning from any program over a period of five months.