Teaching motivation and strategies to improve mental rotation abilities

Mental rotation is a critical ability for succeeding in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields. It has been widely demonstrated that men outperform women in mental rotation. However, women can improve their performance if trained to use effective strategies and if they practice using spatial tasks. This study tested the hypothesis that training motivation is an effective tool to increase women’s mental rotation scores. Two experiments showed that women trained to believe they can succeed and instructed to use holistic strategies increased their mental rotation scores as much as 1 SD, to the point of reaching or going beyond men’s scores before training. The results were achieved in a 1 hr training session and by comparing both repeated testing and active control groups. The discussion focuses on the importance of motivational factors in explaining the gender gap in mental rotation and in STEM careers.