Spatial thinking skills are associated with performance, persistence, and achievement in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) school subjects. Because STEM knowledge and skills are integral to developing a well-trained workforce within and beyond STEM, spatial skills have become a major focus of cognitive, developmental, and educational research. However, these efforts are greatly hampered by the current lack of access to reliable, valid, and well-normed spatial tests. Although there are hundreds of spatial tests, they are often hard to access and use, and information about their psychometric properties is frequently lacking. Additional problems include (1) substantial disagreement about what different spatial tests measure—even two tests with similar names may measure very different constructs; (2) the inability to measure some STEM-relevant spatial skills by any existing tests; and (3) many tests only being available for specific age groups. The first part of this report delineates these problems, as documented in a series of structured and open-ended interviews and surveys with colleagues. The second part outlines a roadmap for addressing the problems. We present possibilities for developing shared testing systems that would allow researchers to test many participants through the internet. We discuss technological innovations, such as virtual reality, which could facilitate the testing of navigation and other spatial skills. Developing a bank of testing resources will empower researchers and educators to explore and support spatial thinking in their disciplines, as well as drive the development of a comprehensive and coherent theoretical understanding of spatial thinking.

The block design test (BDT) has been used for over a century in research and clinical contexts as a measure of spatial cognition, both as a singular ability and as part of more comprehensive intelligence assessment. Traditionally, the BDT has been scored using methods that do not reflect the full potential of individual differences that could be measured by the test. Recent advancements in technology, including eye-tracking, embedded sensor systems, and artificial intelligence, have provided new opportunities to measure and analyze data from the BDT. In this methodological review, we outline the information that BDT can assess, review several recent advancements in measurement and analytic methods, discuss potential future uses of these methods, and advocate for further research using these methods.

Spatial thinking skills are associated with performance, persistence, and achievement in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) school subjects. Because STEM knowledge and skills are integral to developing a well-trained workforce within and beyond STEM, spatial skills have become a major focus of cognitive, developmental, and educational research. However, these efforts are greatly hampered by the current lack of access to reliable, valid, and well-normed spatial tests. Although there are hundreds of spatial tests, they are often hard to access and use, and information about their psychometric properties is frequently lacking. Additional problems include (1) substantial disagreement about what different spatial tests measure; even two tests with similar names may measure very different constructs; (2) some STEM-relevant spatial skills may not be measured by any existing tests; (3) many tests are only available for specific age groups. The first part of this report delineates these problems, as documented in a series of structured and open-ended interviews with colleagues. The second part outlines a roadmap for addressing the problems. We present possibilities for developing shared testing systems that would allow researchers to test many participants through the Internet. We discuss technological innovations, such as virtual reality, which could facilitate testing of navigation and other spatial skills. Developing a bank of testing resources will empower researchers and educators to explore and support spatial thinking in their disciplines, as well as drive development of a comprehensive and coherent theoretical understanding of spatial thinking.

This paper presents a proof-of-concept for a new paradigm for analyzing human-object interactions with high spatiotemporal resolution. The system comprises a set of smart IoT objects, equipped with sensors to monitor their spatial states and surroundings, including other smart objects. Each object is able to detect, store, and wirelessly report its orientation, rotation, adjacency, and various types of movements, both its own and those of neighboring objects. By collating this data, an analytical model can reconstruct a participant’s spatiotemporal handling of the objects with millisecond resolution, thereby inferring their spatial reasoning process. The objective is to establish a IoT echo systems for monitoring, characterizing, and enhancing human spatial reasoning through this novel approach of observing interactions between humans and objects with agency. The paper delves into the engineering details of the IoT system, followed by a series of spatial reasoning-related experiments. Subsequently, analytical methods are developed to gain insights into participants’ spatial reasoning within the context of two well-known tasks: the Tower of Hanoi and the Wechsler Block Design Task. Finally, the results are presented to demonstrate the practicality of the developed IoT-style smart object system for quantitatively understanding spatial reasoning in a data-driven manner.

In the past few decades, interest in children’s spatial thinking has increased substantially, and consequently, interest in spatial assessments for children has also increased. However, there are not many reliable, validated, and widely accessible spatial assessments for this segment of the population, which affects researchers' ability to conduct and interpret spatial thinking research. While some limitations of these tests relate to broader issues with spatial assessments in general (see Uttal et al., 2024), creating assessments that are appropriate for children presents unique challenges. In this chapter, we review the current state of tests of children’s spatial thinking, including mental rotation and perspective-taking. We draw on insights from psychometrics, open science, and cognitive development research. Furthermore, we examine how spatial assessments affect research on the relation between spatial and STEM abilities, particularly research aimed at leveraging spatial thinking through interventions and training that improve children’s spatial skills and, in turn, their STEM performance (i.e., Bruce & Hawes, 2015; Cheng & Mix, 2014; Hawes et al., 2022; Judd & Klingberg, 2021; Mix et al., 2021). Lastly, we outline recommendations for improving these assessments to ultimately improve research and theory creation on the development of spatial thinking.

Standardized cognitive assessments are essential in research but often limited by proprietary restrictions and methodological constraints. This study evaluates the psychometric properties of two public-domain International Cognitive Ability Resource (ICAR) measures implemented in the Mobile Toolbox (MTB) assessment library: Puzzle Completion and Block Rotation. Using a sample of 100 adults (18–82 years), we assessed internal consistency, test–retest reliability, and construct validity compared to gold-standard measures. Results demonstrated acceptable reliability for both Puzzle Completion and Block Rotation. Each measure showed moderate to strong correlations with respective gold-standard assessments: Puzzle Completion correlated with Raven’s Progressive Matrices (r = 0.40), and Block Rotation with Mental Rotation Test (r = 0.46). Practice effects were non-significant. Both demonstrated the ability to discriminate between verbal and nonverbal abilities. Findings were consistent with previous ICAR validations, suggesting MTB provides a viable option for remote self-administration while preserving measurement integrity. This enables larger sample collection and ecological assessment of cognitive abilities outside of laboratory settings.