Spatial Thinking in Practice: A Snapshot of teacher’s Spatial Activity Use in the Early Years’ Classroom

— Spatial thinking predicts Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics achievement, yet is often absent from educational policy . We provide benchmarks of teachers’ usage and perceptions of spatial activities in practice in the reception classroom (ﬁrst year of primary school). In this questionnaire study of educational professionals working in the reception classroom in England ( N = 104), we found that spatial and numeracy activities were perceived as signiﬁcantly less important, and were reportedly completed signiﬁcantly less often, than literacy or life skills. Despite the lower perceived importance of spatial skills in curriculum guidance in England, rates of reported spatial activity use were encouragingly high and were broadly comparable to those of numeracy. Teachers had moderate anxiety levels for both spatial and mathematics domains. The ﬁndings highlight a need to elevate teachers’ understanding of the importance of developing children’s early spatial and numeracy skills, which may begin with eﬀorts to reduce spatial and mathematics anxiety.

standards for children from birth to 5 years) in England, with an increased emphasis on number skills (Department for Education, 2021).This demonstrates an active de-prioritization of spatial reasoning in the reception classroom (first year of primary school when children are 4-5 years old).Even before this change, spatial reasoning comprised a minimal proportion of all early learning goals (Department for Education, 2017).However, beyond policy, what do educators think about spatial thinking in practice?
Key to children developing proficient spatial skills is that they are awarded opportunities to engage in spatial activities.Educators play a key role in providing spatial opportunities in the classroom, however, as outlined previously in Costa, Outhwaite, and Van Herwegen (2021), there is debate in the early years' literature regarding whether learning in the early years should focus on formal (adult-led) or informal (child-led) activities.Informal learning activities are characterized by discovery-based learning (Baroody & Li, 2009) whereby skills are not explicitly taught.These activities are child-directed and typically self-regulated (Gray, 2015), although they can be supported by teachers (Zosh et al., 2018), for example, jigsaws, crafting, and programming simple toys like Beebots.By comparison, formal learning activities are led by teachers (Ginsburg, Lee, & Boyd, 2008) including explicitly teaching children to gesture, draw maps, and use spatial language.Evidence from other learning domains shows differences in the implementation of informal and formal learning activities, for example, across literacy and numeracy (Costa et al., 2021).However, to date there is no evidence comparing formal and informal spatial activity use in the early years.Although it is often neglected as an explicit part of mathematics instruction, we know that many early years teachers instinctively use spatial reasoning effectively in their classroom (Bates, Williams, Gilligan-Lee, Gripton, & Farran, 2022), and concern was expressed towards the removal of shape, space, and measure as one of the Early Learning Goals (Husain et al., 2019).Despite this, to date, no known studies have explored the role of the teacher in providing spatial opportunities for children in the reception classroom (4-5 years).Here we address this by investigating teacher's usage and perceptions of formal and informal spatial activities in the reception classroom, and how their use of spatial activities compares to other non-spatial domains (literacy and numeracy).Beyond curriculum guidelines and formal learning objectives, the aspiration is that these findings will provide a realistic snapshot of spatial thinking in practice, driven by teacher experiences.
Teachers and other educational professionals are key players in "spatialising" the primary school curriculum, but why do some teachers use spatial activities more regularly and readily than others?This study also investigated how teacher characteristics, including spatial anxiety and the importance placed on spatial skills, associate with reported spatial activity use.It is well-recognized in educational theory that teacher's beliefs and perceptions influence their classroom environments (Fang, 1996), and by extension their students' motivation and achievement (Caprara, Barbaranelli, Steca, & Malone, 2006;Upadyaya & Eccles, 2014).Gagnier, Holochwost, and Fisher (2022) specifically proposed teachers' beliefs and perceptions of spatial thinking directly influence the success of spatial interventions in the classroom.In their study of spatial thinking and science learning, elementary school teachers were asked to rate how important general spatial skills/abilities were for different STEM problems/scenarios.Encouragingly, teachers' scores mirrored those of spatial experts, that is, they rated spatial skills as very important for items that experts also thought were heavily dependent on spatial skills.This shows that teachers can recognize learning scenarios where spatial skills are important.However, outside specific contexts, this study did not ask teachers their general opinions on the importance of spatial skills compared to other academic domains, which may be a better measure of how likely they are to include spatial activities in their teaching.Furthermore, Gagnier et al. (2022) found teachers rated spatial skills as more important for reception-aged children (4-6 years) compared to pre-school (birth-2 years).Thus, reinforcing the need to explore, in-depth, the beliefs of early years teachers regarding spatial skills.The current study measured teachers' perceptions of the importance of spatial thinking relative to other early learning domains of thinking (referred to hereafter as spatial importance).We also explored spatial importance as one possible teacher characteristic that may explain teachers' use of spatial activities in the classroom.In addition to its importance, this study also examined spatial anxiety.
Spatial anxiety is defined as uneasiness towards spatial processing, causing individuals to avoid engaging in any behavioral opportunities that rely on spatial thinking, for example, mental rotation or navigating with a map (Lyons et al., 2018).It is distinct from mathematics anxiety which, as described by Ashcraft and Kirk (Ashcraft & Kirk, 2001 p. 1), is "a feeling of tension, apprehension, or fear that interferes with math performance".Previous research shows teachers' spatial anxiety is negatively correlated with students' (Grade 1 and 2, i.e., 6-8 years) mental rotation task performance at the end of the school year, including when controlling for students' initial spatial skills, working memory, and gender (Gunderson, Ramirez, Beilock, & Levine, 2013).Notably, results persisted after controlling for teachers' mathematics anxiety, thus demonstrating the spatial anxiety measure was not a proxy for general anxiety.Malanchini et al. (2017) also show spatial and mathematics anxiety are distinct from general anxiety.
Mathematics anxiety was measured in this study for two reasons.First, as outlined above including a second measure of subject-specific anxiety provided some evidence that our spatial anxiety measure was not simply a proxy for general anxiety.Second, there exist strong associations between spatial and mathematical thinking (Atit et al., 2022) and previous studies have shown links between mathematics anxiety and spatial ability (Ferguson, Maloney, Fugelsang, & Risko, 2015).Therefore, we wanted to explore whether mathematics anxiety might also influence the use of spatial activities in the classroom.
Research exploring two sub-domains of spatial anxiety (mental manipulation anxiety and visual imagery anxiety) shows primary and secondary school teachers with higher mental manipulation anxiety have lower spatial (mental rotation) performance.However, there was no association between imagery anxiety and spatial skill (Atit & Rocha, 2021).Furthermore, although spatial skill (mental rotation performance) was associated with teacher's efficacy in cultivating students' spatial skills during science instruction, neither sub-domain of spatial anxiety was associated with efficacy (Gagnier et al., 2022).However, the teachers in the sample spanned the entire K-12 system (i.e., 5-18 years), yet opportunities to embed spatial activities into teaching may differ across grades, and results may differ for particular year groups where the mathematics content (curriculum), and by association, the most suitable teaching approaches, may also differ.Therefore, to increase the impact of the current study, we limit our population of interest to educators teaching in the reception (4-5 years) classroom only.
In this study, we compliment cognitive findings on spatial and mathematical skills in the classroom (e.g., Hawes et al., 2022), by providing a snapshot of teachers' usage and perceptions of formal and informal spatial activities in practice.Our first aim was to compare teachers' frequency of use of formal and informal spatial activities, to similar literacy and numeracy activities.Secondly, we investigated teachers' perceptions of spatial skills, by examining subject-specific differences in how teachers rate the importance of spatial, numeracy, literacy, and daily living skills in the reception classroom (4-5 years).Finally, to further understand why teachers differ in their use of classroom-based spatial activities, we investigated associations between spatial anxiety and spatial importance and reported formal and informal spatial activity use.Identifying factors that contribute to the provision of spatial activity use in the classroom may allow for the design of interventions to support teachers in their spatial activity implementation.In short, here we bridge the gap between theory and classroom application, by providing invaluable insights into teachers' use of spatial thinking in practice.

Participants
There were 104 participants in the final sample, all of whom identified as working in the reception classroom, of these 91% were classroom teachers, 5% were teaching assistants and 4% were headteachers (average years of teaching experience: M = 10.5, SD = 7.2, range = 1-34) (Figure 1).Note that the inclusion/exclusion of headteachers did not alter the pattern of results reported, and they were therefore retained.The sample was employed across a range of educational settings, including 58% from schools funded by local authorities, 33% from academies (part of a multi-academy trust), 2% from standalone academies, 2% from free schools (schools set up by group/organization that are government funded but not run by local authorities), 5% from private/independent schools and 1% from community schools (state-funded but run by the local education authority).The schools were located across England, including the Northeast (3.8%), Northwest (16.3%),Yorkshire and the Humber (11.5%),West Midlands (5.8%),East Midlands (7.7%), Southwest (15.4%),Southeast (16.3%),East of England (8.7%), and Greater London (14.4%).This demographic information suggests that our sample was representative of teachers across a diverse range of locations and school settings.Participants were recruited via opportunity sampling within the authors' professional networks.They were not reimbursed for their participation.

Procedure
Participants completed an online questionnaire using the online data collection platform Qualtrics.Before taking part, participants read an information sheet about the study and consented using an online consent form.A full copy of the questionnaire can be found in the supplementary materials and on our Open Science Framework (OSF) page  (https://osf.io/bqukr/).Note only sub-components of the questionnaire that are included in the current study are detailed in the measures section below.

Demographic Information
Teachers answered demographic questions relating to their number of years of teaching experience, their current job role, other teaching responsibilities, the location of their school, and the type of funding that their school received.
Classroom Activity Questionnaire A Classroom Activity Questionnaire was designed for this study, including items used previously (see Costa et al., 2021).Participants were asked to rate how often they implemented different formal and informal spatial, literacy, and mathematics activities in the classroom.There were 16 items per domain (spatial, numeracy, literacy) with eight formal and eight informal activities each.Examples are shown in Table 1.Participants were asked to respond to each item on a 6-point Likert scale with the options: 'not at all', 'once or twice a term', 'once a week', 'a few times per week', 'everyday', 'several times a day'.

Activity Importance Questionnaire
An importance questionnaire was also designed for use in this study, based on previous research (Costa et al., 2021).These questionnaire items measured the value/importance that teachers placed on the development of different skills in the reception classroom (spatial, literacy, numeracy, and life skills) before children transition to their next academic school year (see Table 2).Participants were asked to respond to five questions for each domain on a 5-point Likert scale with the options: 'not important', 'somewhat important', 'important', 'very important', 'extremely important'.

Spatial Anxiety
The Mental Manipulation subdomain of the Spatial Anxiety Scale (Lyons et al., 2018) was used to assess spatial anxiety.Due to constraints on the length of our online questionnaire, we did not measure imagery or navigation anxiety sub-domains.As small-scale spatial skills are most closely aligned with the sort of spatial activities that a teacher might complete in the classroom, for example, jigsaws, building blocks, and mental manipulation anxiety has been associated with spatial skill in previous studies (Atit & Rocha, 2021), this sub-domain of spatial anxiety was deemed most appropriate.Participants were asked to rate how much they would be made to feel anxious in eight different scenarios relating to mental manipulation, for example, asked to imagine and mentally rotate a 3-dimensional figure.Participants responded on a 5-point Likert scale with the options, 'not at all', 'a little', 'a fair amount', 'much', and 'very much'.

Data Analysis
For all measures (questionnaires) sum scores were used, where higher scores indicate higher frequency of use, importance ratings, and anxiety.Reliability analysis was run for each of the questionnaire measures.Cronbach's alpha scores indicated acceptable to excellent levels (>.70) for most measures (Table A1).The formal and informal literacy activities were an exception to this as they had poor reliability.The results of these measures should therefore be interpreted in the context of this limitation.Removing items from any scale did not substantially improve reliability, and as many of these measures have been used previously in other studies, all items were retained.Only participants who completed at least one of the questionnaires (excluding the demographic measures) were included.Post-hoc power analysis for the largest analysis (regression with four predictors, α of .05,n = 91, effect size (f 2 ) = .11)indicated that the achieved power was 80.1%.All data analysis was completed using Jamovi.Bayes factors are reported for all non-significant effects.A BF 10 between 0.3 and 3 suggests weak support for either hypothesis, a BF 10 of 3-10 indicates moderate (and > 10 indicates strong) support for the experimental hypothesis, while a BF 10 of 0.3 to 0.1 indicates moderate (and <0.1 indicates strong) support for the null hypothesis (van Doorn et al., 2021).

Descriptive Statistics
Descriptive statistics are shown in Table 3 and correlations between all dependent variables can be found in Table 4.
Although not correlated with the use of spatial activities, years of teaching experience is included as a control variable in subsequent regression models, to explicitly demonstrate that different levels of experience and exposure to a variety of curricula across the years, do not significantly impact the use of spatial activities.Tests of normality demonstrated several of the variables were skewed, and in some cases, Shapiro-Wilk values were less than .05.Given that the sample was larger than 30 participants, the Central Limit Theorem applies here, and parametric analyses were used throughout (Field, 2013).

Teachers' Use of Formal and Informal Spatial Activities in the Classroom
A repeated measures Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was completed with subject (spatial, numeracy, literacy) and activity type (informal, formal) as independent variables.The Collapsed across formal and informal activities, the highest levels of activity were for literacy (69.6 ± 5.8), followed by spatial (63.5 ± 7.0), and numeracy (59.7 ± 6.9).The main effect of activity type, F(1,97) = 7.37, p = .008,p 2 = 0.071 (informal > formal) is best explained within the context of the significant interaction between subject and activity type, F(2,194) = 89.02,p < .001,p 2 = 0.479 (Greenhouse Geisser) (Figure 2).This interaction was explored with two one-way ANOVAs.For formal activities, there was a significant effect of subject, F(2,194) = 54.3,p < .001,p 2 = 0.359.Post-hoc comparisons found that teachers used formal literacy activities most often, followed by numeracy and then spatial activities (p < .001for all).For informal activities, there was also a significant effect of subject, F(2,194) = 153.0,p < .001,p 2 = 0.612.However, the pattern of performance differed, with teachers completing informal literacy and spatial activities with a similar frequency (p = .648),but informal numeracy activities significantly less often than both literacy and spatial (p < .001).

Teachers' Perceptions on the Importance of Spatial Skills in the Classroom
A repeated measures ANOVA with subject (spatial, numeracy, literacy, life skills) as the independent variable revealed a significant difference in how teachers rated the importance of different subjects, F(3,309) = 6.79, p < .001,p 2 = 0.062 (G.G).Bonferroni pairwise comparisons found teachers rated literacy as significantly more important than both spatial skills (p = .003)and numeracy skills (p < .001).There was no significant difference in the importance ratings teachers gave for spatial and numeracy skills (p = 1.000), spatial and life skills (p = 1.000), numeracy and life skills (p = 1.000), or literacy and life skills (p = .098)(see Figure 3).

Predictors of Teachers' Reported Spatial Activity Use in the Classroom
Linear regression models explored predictors of reported spatial activity use in the classroom (see Table 5).In Model 1, reported formal spatial activity use was the outcome.In step 1, the control variables (mathematics anxiety, years of teaching experience) were added and explained 1.39% of the variation, F(2,89) = 1.64, p = .200.Spatial anxiety and spatial importance were added in step 2 and explained an additional 12.53% of the variation, F(4,87) = 4.67, p = .002.Mathematics anxiety and spatial importance were significant predictors in the final model.Model 2 included reported informal spatial activity use as the outcome variable.In step 1, the same control variables   were added and explained 0.20% of the variation, F(2, 89) = 1.09, p = .340.Spatial anxiety and spatial importance were added in step 2 and explained an additional 9.85% of the variation, F(4, 87) = 3.54, p = .010.Spatial anxiety was the only significant predictor in the final model.Note that all VIF and Tolerance collinearity statistics were within the accepted range; Tolerance values >0.2 (Menard, 1995) and VIF scores <10 (Myers, 1990).

DISCUSSION
This study provides a snapshot of teachers' usage and perceptions of spatial activities in practice.It highlights areas in which teacher support, in terms of both training and resources, is required.Teachers reported completing literacy most frequently, followed by spatial, then numeracy activities.These findings mirror evidence that teachers spend less time on mathematics (5-8% of the school day) compared to literacy (21% of the school day; Early et al., 2005).In the current study, we added spatial skills to these comparisons for the first time.Although spatial skill development has not been a key focus in early years curricula, we found that spatial activities are frequently used in the classroom.Promisingly, this suggests that many educators intuitively recognize a value in developing children's spatial skills, even without specific learning goals prompting them to do so.By extension, however, the low frequency of use of numeracy activities is alarming.One explanation could be that teachers and parents are less confident in teaching numeracy due to their own difficulties with mathematics (Costa et al., 2021).The national level of numeracy in the UK is concerningly low, with approximately 20% of 16-to 65-year-olds in England demonstrating numeracy skills akin to a 9-year-old child (National Numeracy, 2020).Could it be that difficulties with mathematics limit teachers in implementing numeracy activities in their teaching?More detailed insight can be found by comparing formal and informal activity use.For formal activities, literacy was completed most often followed by numeracy, then spatial.If formal activities are driven by the curriculum, it is not surprising that literacy and numeracy have more prominence.Prioritizing literacy and numeracy over spatial activities, suggests teachers are formally working towards achieving children's early learning goals.The lack of early learning goals relating to spatial skills may explain why formal spatial activities are completed less often.By comparison, for informal activities, spatial and literacy activities were completed with a similar high frequency, while numeracy activities were less common.Many informal activities may be deemed as "play activities" with fewer progression consequences if they are not included in the classroom.While formal activities are often more structured and have clear correct answers (e.g., number activity books, writing numbers, recognizing letters), informal activities may require greater subject-specific expertise and creativity (e.g., programmable toys, weighing, measuring, and comparing quantities, rhythm games).The lower use of informal numeracy may suggest that teachers in the reception classroom are less confident in engaging in numeracy-based informal activities than those in other domains.
One explanation for the lower use of numeracy (informal) and spatial skills (formal) in the classroom is that teachers receive less support for these domains compared to literacy, for example, continuous professional development, materials, and initial teacher training (Davis, & Spatial Reasoning Study Group, 2015).Additionally, teachers may perceive these activities as less important, and consequently, choose to spend less time on them.Addressing our second aim, teachers rated the development of literacy skills in the reception classroom as significantly more important than spatial and numeracy skills.Literacy was also rated as more important than daily living skills (although not significantly).Findings that teachers and parents perceive literacy as more important than numeracy are again not uncommon (Costa et al., 2021;Early et al., 2005;Napoli, Korucu, Lin, Schmitt, & Purpura, 2021).However, here it is interesting to note that importance scores for spatial and numeracy activities were similar.This is surprising given the strong emphasis on numeracy versus spatial skills in the early years learning goals.Regardless, more work is needed to convince practitioners of the value of numeracy and spatial skills in the early years, so that they are perceived with the same importance as literacy.For children, not attaining the required numeracy and spatial skills in early life may have far-reaching downstream effects, for example, mathematics test performance at age 7 is a predictor of socio-economic status up to 35 years later (Ritchie & Bates, 2013).
Finally, we sought to understand personal characteristics that may explain why some teachers use more spatial activities in their classrooms, compared to others.Teachers had relatively high levels of mathematics and spatial anxiety considering that average scores of 24 equate to "moderate" levels of mathematics anxiety (Hopko et al., 2003), and "a fair amount" of spatial anxiety (Lyons et al., 2018), respectively.Spatial importance (how important teachers perceived spatial thinking to be) and mathematics anxiety were significant predictors of reported formal spatial activity use.While the link between spatial importance and reported spatial activity use seems logical, it is curious that teachers with higher mathematics anxiety completed more spatial activities.One possible explanation is that due to the anxiety that some teachers feel towards teaching mathematics, these teachers may instead favor spatial techniques/approaches for teaching numeracy over numerical approaches.It is well established that those who experience mathematics anxiety often exhibit mathematics avoidance (Choe, Jenifer, Rozek, Berman, & Beilock, 2019).In this way, perhaps formal spatial activities offer a less threatening way of delivering mathematics content for teachers with elevated mathematics anxiety.Conversely, we found that spatial anxiety was the only predictor of reported informal spatial activity use.Teachers with higher spatial anxiety were found to more regularly use informal spatial activities in the classroom, perhaps because informal activities do not require clear correct/incorrect answers but instead are more creative.This means that informal spatial activities may offer an accessible route to embedding spatial elements into teaching.However, further research is required to unpick the nuances of these relations.
This study should be interpreted in the context of its strengths and weaknesses.The study is strengthened by the discrete sub-group of practitioners surveyed, that is, reception teachers.In certain year groups, and for certain topics, specific spatial activities are more/less appropriate, for example, use of building blocks, and picture books are more appropriate in the early years, while tangrams and 3D rotation tools are more appropriate for older age groups.Hence, the year group is likely a confound in previous studies of spatial activity use in the classroom, particularly when surveys of specific spatial activities are included.By focusing on the reception year only, with a diverse sample of practitioners (from settings across the UK, and with varied levels of classroom experience), we enhance the usefulness of the findings as a basis for informing teaching and practice.
Conversely, the restricted sample means that these findings are not applicable to other year groups.However, this study can provide a template for future research exploring spatial activity use in the classroom with practitioners from other year groups.Another limitation is the use of self-report measures and the potential for bias in how participants remember and perceive their own practice (Schwarz, 1999).While this study provides valuable insight into practitioner's activities, classroom observations could provide richer insights into spatial skills in teaching practice.Furthermore, although we have described spatial and numeracy activities as separate entities throughout, spatial thinking is recruited in the completion of some formal and informal numeracy activities, for example, physical manipulatives may be used to support counting.However, in our survey, we were interested to see how often specific activities were completed in the classroom and as such any indirect use of spatial thought in numeracy activities is not relevant here.
Another potential limitation of this study is that we did not measure general anxiety.Although previous research has shown that spatial, mathematics, and general anxiety are distinct constructs (Malanchini et al., 2017), and similar effects of general anxiety would be expected across both spatial and mathematics anxiety measures, it is still possible that general anxiety could drive some of the associations between spatial and mathematics anxiety, and other measures.Finally, owing to its associational design, we can only infer directions of causality.Any proposed explanations for observed correlations are inferential only and should be interpreted as such.
Findings from activity use and perceived importance show that spatial and numeracy sub-domains are often overlooked when compared to literacy.However, given the lack of focus on spatial skills in the English curriculum, the frequency of reported spatial activity use was encouragingly high.In the context of the ongoing technological revolution and the need for improving the STEM skills of the workforce, these findings highlight a need to elevate teacher's understanding of the importance of developing children's early spatial and numeracy skills.This may start with efforts to reduce teacher's spatial and mathematics anxiety and educate them on how best to incorporate spatial skills into their teaching (e.g., spatial reasoning toolkit see Gifford et al., 2022).

Fig. 1 .
Fig. 1.Graph showing the distribution of teachers with different levels of teaching experience.

Fig. 2 .
Fig. 2. Use of formal and informal activities in the classroom across different subject domains.

Fig. 3 .
Fig. 3. Teachers perceptions of the importance of different classroom activities.

Table 1
Sample Items for the Classroom Activity Questionnaire

Table 2
Sample Items for the Activity Importance Questionnaire Participants responded on a 5-point Likert scale with the options, 'low anxiety', 'some anxiety', 'moderate anxiety', 'quite a bit of anxiety', and 'high anxiety'.
the frequency of use.The main effect of the subject was significant, F(2,194) = 95.53,p < .001,p 2 = 0.496.Bonferroni post-hoc tests showed there were significant differences between all subjects (p < .001for all).

Table 4
Unadjusted Pearson's Correlations Downloaded from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/mbe.12352by University College London UCL Library Services, Wiley Online Library on [28/03/2023].See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions)on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License

Table 5
Regression Coefficients for Models Exploring Predictors of Reported Formal (Model 1) and Informal (Model 2) Spatial Activity Use