Abstract:

The purpose of this study is 1) to determine differences in the characteristics of the spatial thinking ability of students in urban and rural school environments and 2) to determine differences in the characteristics of the spatial thinking ability of the students in the urban and rural school environments in terms of the type of gender. This research uses experiment methods with a population of class XI students of Social Science both in urban and rural schools with a total sample of 31 students from each school. Spatial thinking skills are measured through the test of problem solving using the satellite imagery of Google Earth as a tool of representation. Spatial thinking skills assessment is based on the components of spatial thinking. It includes understanding concepts of spatial, the use of representation tools, and reasoning process. The data analysis uses statistical for different test with SPSS 25.0 for windows. The results showed, first, spatial thinking ability character’s between students in the urban and rural environments are significantly differences. So, the character of environment, i.e., urban and rural is not always consistent in influencing the spatial thinking ability of the students. Second, no differences in the spatial thinking ability in the statistics between male and female students. However, the students in urban environment have the characteristics of spatial thinking better than the students in the rural environment. Female students in urban environment have more powerful character of spatial thinking skills, though it is not proven in male students.

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