A Player-Centric Approach to Designing Spatial Skill Training Games

Certain video games show promise as tools for training spa- tial skills, one of the strongest predictors of future success in STEM. However, little is known about the gaming pref- erences of those who would benefit the most from such interventions: low spatial skill students. To provide guidance on how to design training games for this population, we con- ducted a survey of 350 participants from three populations: online college-age, students from a low SES high school, and students from a high SES high school. Participants took a timed test of spatial skills and then answered questions about their demographics, gameplay habits, preferences, and mo- tivations. The only predictors of spatial skill were gender and population: female participants from online and low SES high school populations had the lowest spatial skill. In light of these findings, we provide design recommendations for game-based spatial skill interventions targeting low spatial skill students.