Learning Mapping Software Improves High School Students' Spatial Reasoning

• In Event: 2-139 - Spatial Symbols and Spatial Thought: How Language and Maps Shape the Development of Spatial Thinking

Integrative Statement

The other presentations in this symposium have focused on the influences of spatial language on the development of spatial thinking. Our focus here will be on the influences of a different spatial symbol: Maps. Because maps can visually depict the relations among many different locations, they can help students to see, and to learn, information that might be very difficult and cumbersome to communicate in language, such as the relative position of several different cities in the U.S. Thus, language and maps are complimentary symbol systems for representing and communicating spatial information.

We suggest that using maps can influence spatial thinking and spatial development, by helping children to take perspectives that differ from those seen in navigation. For example, looking at a map can highlight the relations among sets of locations, and can show information that transcends the limits of direct experience. Over time, children may internalize this view, and construct a mental model of large-scale space that includes the perspectives and information that maps can provide.

This theoretical perspective has motivated our interest in the influence of using computer software that facilitates using maps to solve scientific and engineering problems. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) have transformed the construction of maps and how they are used. A GIS allows the user to map spatial data in many different ways to solve a variety of problems. For example, a GIS user could visualize simultaneously weather patterns, ground cover density, and historical wildfire patterns in developing techniques to predict and prevent fire.

We hypothesized that learning to use GIS to solve engineering and scientific problems may also promote growth in spatial thinking. We evaluated the influences of completing a year-long high school course, the Geospatial Semester (GSS), that emphasizes the use of GIS. Students learn how to use GIS and then design and complete a final project that requires extensive spatial problem solving.

We hypothesized that participation in the GIS course would lead to improvements in spatial skills, including not only psychometrically-assessed skills, such as a mental rotation, but also scientific reasoning (e.g, the evaluation of claims and evidence). We have tested this hypothesis in two studies involving more than 100 GSS students and comparison groups of students who are matched in terms of prior classes and level of study. We measured students' spatial and problem-solving skills both at the beginning and end of the course, using interviews in which students were asked to suggest possible solutions to hypothetical problems. We found that participation in the GSS led to improvements in scientific reasoning about spatial problems. In addition, GSS-students used more spatial words than the comparison group did in their interviews, even after controlling for possible differences in the overall number of words used. In the second study, we also showed that completing the GSS also led to improvements in reaction time for mental rotation and the embedded figures test. Taken together, the results highlight the important role that using maps and GIS can play in facilitating spatial skills and reasoning.

Author

• David H Uttal, Northwestern University
  Presenting Author