The Comparison of Mental Rotation Performances and Academic Achievements in Students of the Faculty of Sport Sciences and Education Sciences

Mental rotation (MR) is the ability to rotate three-dimensional objects using the imagination. As the ability to generate, retrieve, maintain, and manipulate visual-spatial information, MR plays a critical role throughout education and sport. In this aspect our objective in this study was to compare MR performances and academic achievement between students of art, foreign languages (FL), computer-instructional technologies (CIT) and physical education (PE). In the computer-based MR test, the image files of the library "Mental Rotation Stimulus Library" were used with the written permission of the author. A total of 144 participants composed of 79 males and 65 females volunteered in the study. Comparing the academic achievements (AA) with the PE group and art, CIT, FL and control groups; it was observed that all the groups are better than PE (p < 0.05). However, no significant difference was found between PE and all groups in MR performances (p > 0.05). In conclusion, PE students performed similarly with other students in terms of MR, although their AA were low. MR ability is clearly related not only to problem solving, acquiring mathematical knowledge and academic thinking but also to motor abilties.