Call for an agenda and center for GIS education research

Research In Geographic Education Online, 2013

Despite nearly 20 years of intensive investment by higher education, industry, primary and secondary teachers, youth and community leaders, government agencies, and non-profits organizations in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in education around the world, a GIS education research agenda has yet to be developed. This paper provides a rationale and a broad background for a GIS education research agenda and describes what that agenda should include. This agenda identifies research progress made in: student learning and outcomes instructor professional development technical development, to identify where major gaps still exist. In so doing, it is hoped that this agenda will serve as a focal point of communication for the GIS education research community and encourage additional and deeper research into these and related topics so that future directions in GIS education will have a sound research base on which to build.

Kerski, J. J., Milson, A. J. ve Demirci, A. (2012). Synthesis: The future landscape of GIS in secondary education. A. J. Milson, A. Demirci ve J. J. Kerski (Eds.), in International perspectives on teaching and learning with GIS in secondary schools (pp. 315-326), 2012

No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher, with the exception of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work.

Journal of Geographical Systems, 2000

This paper discusses the educational and instructional challenges posed by the rapid development and acceptance of GIS as a tool for applied spatial analysis. Many commentators have noted the mismatch between the sophisticated capabilities of Spatial Analysis/GIS and the techniques that are actually employed in practice. It must be recognized that there is a challenge to educators to overcome this gap. This mismatch is especially apparent in the case of social science applications. This paper (a) discusses implications for training both future users and developers of GIS tools; (b) includes some observations on the tensions between the demand for skills (to satisfy certain applications) and the potential diversion of e¨ort and talent from fundamental research; and (c) o¨ers some thoughts for ways in which progress might be made.

2008

Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2011

We present the analysis of video case studies of students using geographic information systems (GIS) software to address sophisticated, locally-based problems in a secondary school course. Students show evidence of complex problem definition, hands on resolutions to conceptual and technological issues through the application of advanced geospatial processing, and choice of representations in their work, as well as the application of advanced geospatial processing. We are also conducting a quantitative study of the ...

International perspectives on teaching and learning with GIS in secondary schools, 2012

No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher, with the exception of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work.

2012

This research investigated whether completing an introductory GIS course affects college students' spatial literacy as defined by spatial habits of mind, spatial concepts and thinking skills, and critical spatial thinking. This study employed three tests (spatial habits of mind inventory, spatial concepts and skills test, critical spatial thinking oral test) to measure students' performance on these three elements. Furthermore, this research investigated the relationship among the components. Pre-and post-tests were conducted at the beginning and the end of the 2010 fall semester, and Texas A&M undergraduate students participated in the research. The following four research questions were examined. The first research question investigated whether GIS learning improves spatial habits of mind (n = 168). Five sub-dimensions of spatial habits of mind (pattern recognition, spatial description, visualization, spatial concept use, and spatial tool use) were identified. Overall, GIS students' spatial habits of mind were enhanced. However, variations existed when considering students' performance by dimension.

J Reading Journal of Research and Didactics in Geography, 2013

Teaching GIS in universities, over the last few decades, has often been applied in focus. Yet academic research is much more than application: epistemology, representation, critical GIS have been gaining an increasing share of research. This trend is paralleled by increasing awareness and sophistication in the professional practice of GIS. Nonetheless, the increasing availability of spatial analytical techniques in commercial and freeware GIScience software, not paralleled by an increased knowledge in GIScience practitioners, raises questions about the maturity of the GIScience user community and the potential consequences of an incautious popularization. Appealing to the average GIScience user by means of friendly interfaces, most analytical functions fail to keep a standard promise of GIScience software: guiding the user through a safe path to a successful application. This lack of guidance is perceived as a gap, the consequences of which range from discouragement to naïve or incorrect applications. Future GIScience professionals should be prepared to look beyond their software interface, and the discipline should strive to maintain its own rules and make its own decisions when it comes to packaging their tools. A key role can and must by played by those who teach GIS in our universities, whose task id to form a generation of GIScientists, not simply of GIS technicians.

Within the last 30 years, geographical information systems (GIS) have been used increasingly in the training of geographers. On the basis of the philosophy of technology and instrumental genesis, we sketch how the use of instruments interacts with learning processes and outline how this can be studied. We empirically analyse students’ learning processes and the influences of teaching practice in an introductory course in GIS. We show that students have different strategies for creating their personal instrument for spatial thinking and how teaching interacts with the students’ learning processes. Finally, we discuss how GIS may gradually alter future professional development of geographers.