12.3 Are Geospatial Practices Actually Effective
The educational benefits of practicing GST in secondary education began to be discussed in research papers at the beginning of the 1990s (Patterson et al.2003);
however, empirical data showing the effects of GIS on geographic learning, moti- vation, spatial ability and problem solving started to emerge by the late 1990s (Huynh2009). There is not a study in the literature advocating that GST is useless for education. In general, there are two groups of studies concerning the effective- ness of GST for teaching and learning. The first group states that GST is effective in teaching and learning, despite reservations about a proper implementation method being raised. Although the majority of these studies are qualitative and based on theory, some important quantitative studies have been carried out, especially in recent years. The majority of these studies indicated that GST was effective, especially in making geography lessons more visual, student-centered and desirable by increasing students’ achievements (Demirci 2008, 2011; Goldstein and Alibrandi 2013; Keiper 1999; Kerski 2003; Meyer et al. 1999; Patterson et al.2003; Shin2007; West2003).
Audet and Abegg (1996) conducted one of the early studies to understand the effects of teaching with GST. After using GIS in a pilot study with high school students, they found that GIS was helpful for students when developing problem- solving abilities. Keiper (1999) also conducted a study in the late 1990s to under- stand the cognitive implications of GIS use in education. After conducting a GIS learning project with his students, Keiper stated that the project dramatically shifted the study of geography from memorization of places to the practice of geography skills; therefore, it encouraged the use of geographic knowledge.
Fig. 12.2 Conditions affecting the use of GST in education
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The studies aiming to measure the effectiveness of geospatial practices for teaching and learning increased in number in the early 2000s. Baker and White (2003) developed and implemented a project based learning unit with two groups of students: one with collaborative GIS, the other with paper maps from an eighth grade Earth science lesson. They found a significant improvement in attitudes toward technology and in geographic data analysis for students who used GIS.
Kerski (2003) carried out another important quantitative study almost at the same time. Kerski developed 12 geography lessons and implemented them with two methods: one with GIS, the other with traditional print materials. He found that the practices with GIS had a significant effect on student performance, increased students’ test scores and improved students’ abilities to synthesize, identify and describe reasons for human and physical patterns. In the same study, Kerski also concluded that GIS practices fostered students’ higher-order analytical and syn- thetic thinking.
The effectiveness of practicing GST has been analyzed in more detail in many other recent studies. Liu et al. (2010) evaluated problem-based learning using GIS technology in a Singapore secondary school with students in experimental and control groups. They observed that students in the control group showed memori- zation skills, while students in the experimental group demonstrated higher-level cognitive learning skills, especially analytical and evaluation skills. In another recent study, Perkins et al. (2010) stated that a three-day GIS/GPS curriculum significantly increased students’ spatial awareness. Goldstein and Alibrandi (2013) carried out quantitative analyses on standardized test scores of two groups of middle school students, with and without GIS instructions, and found out that GIS instructions significantly affected students’achievement on reading scores and on final course grades in science and social studies.
The second view in the literature concerning the effectiveness of GST usually raises concern that the studies and experiences of teaching with GST have not targeted higher order thinking skills especially in secondary education. Therefore, the effectiveness of GST has not yet been proven. There is a need to develop further research to determine whether GIS and other GSTs are actually effective for teaching and learning. We need to look at the literature from a historical perspective in order to understand the concerns raised in relation to their underlying reasons.
Since there was not enough evidence, if any, showing that GIS was an efficient tool to enhance education, the studies published in the 1990s addressed the lack of empirical data to aid in understanding the real effect of GIS in education. Audet (1993) argued that GIS should be used in teaching and learning environments only if it could be proved that it enhanced the way students visualized and interpreted information. Bednarz and Ludwig (1997) raised the same issue by saying that clear evidence was needed to understand if GIS was an effective teaching and learning tool in order to persuade teachers of its value. The studies carried out until the early 2000s were mainly based on intuition or assumptions that the use of GST supported constructivist learning environments; however, they did not provide enough peda- gogical evidence concerning the effectiveness of GST as an educational tool (Biilmann2001; Keiper1999; Lemberg and Stoltman2001).
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One of the most critical studies came from Bednarz (2004), where it was questioned whether GIS was a tool that would support geography and environmen- tal education. This study was published at nearly the same time as other empirical studies that evaluated the effectiveness of GIS for teaching and learning, such as the ones conducted by Kerski (2003) and Baker and White (2003). Bednarz, in the study, addressed questions regarding the benefits, rationales and necessities of teaching with GIS in education. For example, what insights does GIS allow that the other ways of learning do not? This was asked at the first conference on the educational application of GIS, organized in the US in 1994, yet, the same questions remained unanswered a decade later in 2003. By drawing attention to pedagogical issues, Bednarz (2004, p. 198), in the same study, said “we cannot afford to continue to assume that, simply by doing GIS, students will recognize or learn cognitive mapping processes, spatial analysis or spatial thinking”.
Different questions and concerns were raised in the following years regarding the effectiveness of GST for education. In their editorial note in the Journal of Geographical Education, International Research in Geographical and Environmen- tal Education, Lidstone and Stoltman (2006, p. 206) asked, “how much GIS should students know, how should they use it, and how long will the operational skills persist in the minds of the learners?” In his Ph.D. dissertation, West (2008, p. 96) repeated almost the same concerns raised in the previous studies by saying,
“whether or how using GIS enables students to attain the goals of geography remains largely unknown”. In another doctoral study completed in 2009, Huynh (2009) addressed the fact that the research carried out up to that point had usually focused on geographic knowledge, skills, problem solving and attitudes; however, they missed some important areas such as the fundamental knowledge and skills needed for effective GIS use, which is a point still needs further study today to clarify.
Nearly all the studies that raised concerns and questions about the effectiveness of geospatial practices in education actually supported the general view that GIS and other geospatial technologies have great potential and many possible benefits for teaching and learning if they are used with proper methods. Bednarz and van der Schee (2006, p. 203) expressed this as “skeptical enthusiasm”, by saying that they had been enthusiastic about the potential of GIS, but unsure about its fit with the traditional geography curriculum. The concerns and questions raised in these studies generally stem from a search to understand the true and specific values and benefits of GST compared to other technologies and methodologies for teach- ing and learning. As Doering and Veletsianos (2008) addressed, if the practices of GST enable learners only to employ and present data passively, there will not be much difference in the learning process when similar actions were applied with a different method or technology. A paper-based GIS exercise conducted in South Africa was found to be an adequate alternative to contemporary computer- ized GIS teaching methods (Breetzke et al.2011). However, as emphasized by Shin (2006), GST provides students a platform upon which they can interact with data in a dynamic environment where they can manipulate and experiment in a way that would be difficult to do with other types of materials.
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