Educating for a broad global context and developing
problem-solving capacities are fundamental for living in an ever-changing
global society. The ability to construct
meaning and apply knowledge in a broad context is crucial within education
(Petty 2009) and it is the teacher's responsibility to facilitate this within
the subject. This focus is difficult to
embrace within the traditional formal schooling structures. Students can often achieve quite well by
traditional assessment measures but often have difficulty when required to use
this learned knowledge in new styles of problems (Thorndike and Woodworth
1901). Often students pass through the
entire schooling system, and perform quite well, but are unable to utilise this
learned knowledge in broader contexts (Broudy 1977). It is future graphics educators that must
establish the cultural norm. To do this
an ability to apply and transfer knowledge from one context to another is
crucial.
With the objective of analysing the complexities of applying
previous graphical knowledge to a new context, groups of student teachers were
given an applied analytical task based on the geometry of the regular polyhedra
to solve. Prior to the prescribed task,
students were given the opportunity to develop their graphical analytical
knowledge and spatial skills through the completion of a coursework portfolio
based on the content of the puzzle. A
visual-verbal protocol analysis, similar to Montague et al. (2011) was employed
to evaluate students' approaches to solving the puzzle and their ability to
transfer previously learned knowledge and skills to a new situation as well as
their ability to work collectively and communicate their ideas.
The findings indicate a significant inability to transfer
knowledge and skills developed in the coursework portfolio to the new applied
analytical task. Despite students' high
level of performance in both the portfolio, which assessed graphical knowledge,
and the Purdue Spatial Visualisation Test (PSVT), which examines ability to
mentally rotate three-dimensional objects, many students were unable to employ
an efficient approach to solving the applied analytical task. The paper discusses some key variables
relating to performance in the applied analytical task and forms the basis for
further research in the area.