Enhancing High School Students’ Spatial Thinking in Organic Chemistry through Digital Molecular Visualization (KingDrawHD)

In today’s evolving educational landscape, digital tools offer new opportunities to support learners in subjects such as organic chemistry that rely heavily on visualization. This study examines the effectiveness of integrating KingDrawHD, a digital molecular visualization application, into the teaching of organic chemistry to improve grade 11 students’ spatial thinking skills. This research is important given the significant role of spatial thinking in interpreting the molecular structures that are central to organic chemistry. A quasi-experimental design was implemented with two groups: an experimental group receiving instruction supported by KingDrawHD and a control group receiving instruction without digital molecular visualization-based support. A validated 20-item Spatial Thinking Scale was administered pre- and postintervention. Pretest results showed no significant differences between groups (t = 0.782, p = 0.437), confirming baseline equivalence, while post-test results indicated a statistically significant improvement for the experimental group (t = 4.374, p < 0.01). The effect size (Cohen’s d = 0.962) reflected a large impact, demonstrating that the use of KingDrawHD was effective in enhancing students’ spatial reasoning within the context of organic chemistry instruction. While the findings highlight the potential of interactive visualization tools to support spatial skill development, an ability theoretically linked to understanding complex molecular structures, they do not provide evidence for gains in chemistry learning itself, which was beyond the scope of this study. The results contribute to ongoing discussions in technology-enhanced STEM education and suggest that targeted digital applications can play a meaningful role in strengthening foundational cognitive skills needed for STEM learning.