Examining the Relations between Dance and Mathematics among First Class Students

Abstract

Dance and mathematics are seemingly very distant concepts at first glance. In the theoretical parts of our study, we show how strongly mathematics and spatial abilities are interrelated, including the correlation between dance and spatial abilities as well. Consequently, a hypothesis derives that dance develops spatial abilities, through which it develops mathematical skills at the same time. Our research focused on first-year primary school students. During the one-month course, we applied creative children dance and tasks of movement from drama pedagogy. Children’s abilities were measured pre- and after the course classes with a test of both mathematical and spatial skills. According to this research, we could show some improvement in mathematical skills as a result of the development, but there is no significant improvement in spatial skills. We attempted to find out the reasons for the results we found.

Keywords

• spatial abilities
• dance and mathematics
• first grade students