Spatial skills are important for student success in STEM disciplines at the K‐12 educational level. Teachers' spatial skills and feelings about completing spatial tasks influence their teaching as well as their students' spatial learning. However, the relation between teachers' spatial skills and their spatial anxiety is not well understood. Here we investigated if teachers' spatial skills influence two kinds of small‐scale spatial anxiety: (a) anxiety for tasks involving visual imagery and (b) anxiety for tasks involving mental manipulations. In addition, we investigated if teachers' spatial skills in conjunction with their small‐scale spatial anxiety influence the integration of spatial practices, such as gestures and diagrams, into their teaching. Eighty‐two K‐12 teachers completed two subscales of small‐scale spatial anxiety, a measure of spatial skills, and a teaching activities questionnaire. Results indicate that teachers' spatial skills are negatively associated with their spatial anxiety for mental manipulation tasks, and positively associated with their use of spatial practices. These findings highlight the need to account for teachers' spatial skills when considering how to improve students' spatial learning.

中文翻译：

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检查空间技能，空间焦虑与K-12教师实践之间的关系

空间技能对于K-12教育级别的STEM学科的学生成功至关重要。教师的空间技能和完成空间任务的感觉会影响他们的教学以及学生的空间学习。但是，教师的空间技能与他们的空间焦虑之间的关系尚不十分清楚。在这里，我们调查了教师的空间技能是否会影响两种小范围的空间焦虑：（a）对涉及视觉图像的任务的焦虑和（b）对涉及心理操纵的任务的焦虑。此外，我们调查了教师的空间技能及其小范围的空间焦虑是否会影响空间实践（如手势和图表）在其教学中的整合。八十二名K-12教师完成了两个小规模的小规模空间焦虑量表，一种空间技能测量方法和一份教学活动问卷。结果表明，教师的空间技能与他们对心理操纵任务的空间焦虑负相关，与他们对空间实践的使用正相关。这些发现凸显了在考虑如何改善学生的空间学习时需要考虑教师的空间技能。