Rethinking the links between spatial knowledge and geometry in primary education through virtual environments

Virtual environments and virtual realities surround the daily life of children a little more each day. These new interactions with space act on their spatial representations and their knowledge of space. This project aims to analyse to what extent the use of virtual environments can act on the spatial but also geometric knowledge of the students. In order to best carry out this study, different fields of research are involved (didactics of mathematics, educational technology and psychology). Each of these fields has its own specificities (epistemological, methodological and cultural). Our ambition is to combine their points of view on education, learning and cognitive development in relation to the integration of technologies in order to identify the links between these different dimensions.

This research has two main objectives. The first is to identify the spatial abilities of children aged 7 to 10 and the links between mathematical, geometric and spatial knowledge. The second objective is the development of didactic engineering using a virtual environment for spatial learning.

The research methodology mixes constraints from the field of psychology and constraints from the field of didactics. The classes concerned will be 4P-5P and 6P classes (students from 7 to 10 years old). Questionnaires related to the first objective will be proposed at all levels. Didactic engineering will concern all levels with pilot classes, experimental classes and control classes and will take place over 3 years (longitudinal study). These observations will bring an important amount of data. Their processing should bring us answers on the possible links between virtual environments and geometric knowledge as well as on the effects of the use of virtual realities in mathematics teaching.

(Subside no100019_188947 / 1)