Texts

Dong-min Lee Department of Geography Education The Graduate School Seoul National University

Cultivating balanced attitudes toward regions worldwide and overcoming regional stereotypes and biases are the primary goals of geography education. Such educational values are being accorded great importance in globalization and the the multicultural trend in contemporary South Korean society−social contexts that require enhanced global citizenship.

Therefore, developing concrete methods of cultivating balanced attitudes toward regions is not only a vital educational goal, but also an urgent social challenge.

This study focuses on the concept of “mindfulness,” the

perception of information from multilateral, new, and open

perspectives. According to previous research, the effects of

mindfulness includes (1) a decrease in prejudice with the creation of

a condition in which persons are made aware that deviants are not

prescribed absolutely but are different from each other and (2) the

promotion of multilateral, open, and flexible thinking.

This study looks at the possibility of attaining mindfulness to best cultivate a balanced attitude toward regions. In other words, mindful learning, a teaching and learning strategy derived from the concept of mindfulness, could be considered an effective alternative in promoting a balanced regional stance. Two hypotheses were constructed for the research topic: (1) mindful learning may contribute to the cultivation of balanced attitudes toward regions and (2) mindful learning probably becomes a complement of the limitations of geography text materials. Quantitative methods were used to analyze the hypotheses.

In addition, an operational definition of “attitudes toward regions” has been established to carry out concrete research. The term was divided into three categories: (1) curiositiy toward regions, (2) relativistic attitudes, and (3) attitudes of affinity. This study considers these three categories as the fundamental attitudes toward regions that need to be cultivated by geography education, although they do not comprise the whole range of the attitudes.

To test the hypotheses the following analyses were conducted.

First, three experiments were performed on Hypothesis 1. Two types

of reading materials were developed, containing the same text but two

different types of questions; one had the the mindful questions and

the other, content recall questions. A survey on the three attitude

categories was distributed after each material. The three experiments

had same structure except for the text. The first text was about the

human geographic contents of the Middle East; the second, about

physical geographic contents of the Middle East; and the last, about

the geographic contents of South America. To ensure the reliability of the experiments, the results were checked for the occurrence of a repeating pattern. The results did show such a pattern: the group that read the materials containing mindful questions achieved higher means than the groups that read the materials with content recall questions.

All differences between the two groups were statistically significant;

therefore, the result satisfied Hypothesis 1.

To test Hypothesizes 2, two experiments were performed, each proceeding along the logical basis of previous studies−that the style of geography texts possibly influences the attitudes towards regions.

The first experiment focused on the concreteness of geography texts.

Two types of texts were prepared, having the same contents but

written in different styles. One text had a strongly concrete

description about the human geographic aspects of the Middle East

and the other, a moderately concrete description. In addition, both

mindful and content recall questions were attached to each text. Thus,

four types of reading materials were prepared. A survey on the three

categories of the attitudes toward regions (the same one used in the

first set of experiments) was distributed after each material. The

survey results were assessed by a two-way analysis of variance

(ANOVA). The ANOVA showed that both the mindful learning and

text style variables influenced the attitudes toward regions, and

statistically serious interaction was observed between the two. In

particular, the group that read moderately concrete texts with content

recall questions showed a noticeably lower mean than the group that

read highly concrete texts. However, the group that read moderately

concrete texts with mindful questions showed means that were approximately equal to those of the groups that read highly concrete texts. The second experiment had the same structure as that of the first one, but the text style (story texts vs. explanatory texts with small storytelling structures) was prepared. The result of the second experiment showed that the means of the groups that read story texts were higher than those of the groups that read explanatory texts with small storytelling structures. Statistically significant differences were observed in only one category: attitudes of affinity. Moreover, no statistically serious interactions between the mindful learning and text style was observed. However, the mindful learning variable showed statistically significant influence on the attitudes toward regions. In summary, mindful learning is not only an effective method for cultivating balanced attitudes toward regions, but also a promising alternative to the limits of geography texts. Therefore, Hypothesis 2 was also satisfied.

This study draws the following implications from the results.

First, mindful learning should be applied to geography education

actively and systemically to cultivate balanced attitudes toward regions

more effectively. Second, concrete and systemic strategies should be

applied to the use of teaching and learning materials based on

mindful learning, a promising alternative to the limits of geography

teaching and learning materials. Third, the use of questions, the

method of mindful learning used in this study, showed “moderate but

meaningful” effects on the attitudes toward regions. This suggests a

need to seek “simple but helpful” teaching and learning methods that