Abstract
A perception developed by Nicholson and Seddon (1977) was used to assess the understanding of 3 dimensional diagrams by Pakistani students of 8+ year of age. There was a little addition in the sense that Urdu translation of questions were also provided alongside the original English version. After piloting and validation, the final version of the test was comprised upon 30 items: 15 items related to rectangular geometrical figures, 15 items related to hexagonal geometrical figures. The students had to perceive the position of the balls and answer the questions asked. The test was administered to 600 students of class II, III. Participating students from rural, urban public and private sector schools. Public sector school were all traditional where there was only one year preparatory level classes prior to formal admission to class 1. But the urban private schools have play group and one year preparatory levels as well. The study aimed to investigate the effect of different types of schooling on understanding 3D diagrams. Urban schools were generally better in facilities than rural schools. Schools which attended play school performed significantly better than their two other groups. There was no significant gender wise difference of performance in each rural and urban group. However, there were significant differences in rural and urban groups. The students who attended play group were exposed to cartoons viewing, toys fiddling had much better (significant at 0.01 level) understanding of 3D diagrams.