Learning About Spatial and Temporal Scale: Current Research, Psychological Processes, and Classroom Implications

Abstract

Geoscientists analyze and integrate spatial and temporal information at a range of scales to understand Earth processes. Despite this, the concept of scale is ill defined and taught unevenly across the K-16 continuum. This literature review focuses on two meanings of scale: one as the magnitude of the extent of a dimension and the other as a relationship between objects or events. We review 42 papers from science education and discipline-based education research (DBER) literature on students' conceptions related to one or both meanings of scale. Analysis of this prior work reveals a broader (though still limited) research base on domain general concepts of scale as magnitude and scant research on scale as a relationship. Learners begin reasoning about spatial and temporal magnitudes categorically by working with scales based on standard units and nonmetric values, such as body length. Concepts of scale magnitudes outside human experience are nonlinear. Facility with fractions and proportional reasoning are positively associated with the ability to reason about scale as a relationship. Two constructs from the psychological literature, structure mapping and the category adjustment model, offer theoretical accounts for these findings. We borrow a typology from the psychological literature to frame common geoscience instructional models in the context of spatial and temporal scale and suggest how instructors might facilitate students' reasoning about scale models. We identify a number of avenues for possible future research, including a critical need to understand how conceptual understanding of scale develops across the K-16 continuum. Ó

Assessing Water Literacy: Undergraduate Student Conceptions of Groundwater and Surface Water Flow

“…Citizens seeking information to better understand issues in their communities may encounter websites containing tables, graphs, and diagrams designed by experts to communicate with other experts. Additionally, the physical scale and temporal variability of Earth's processes require science educators to rely on several types of models, including diagrams, when communicating about Earth [18]. Students can learn more from words and pictures than from words alone [19].…”

An Issue of Scale: The Challenge of Time, Space and Multitude in Sustainability and Geography Education

“…A handful of studies have been published on how the concept of scale is of consequence in science and more specifically, geography education [11,15,17,[59][60][61][112][113][114]. A common theme in most of these studies touches on the importance of experience in determining a student's proficiency at conceptualizing scale and shifting magnitudes.…”

“…Experience with visualizing scales outside direct human observation: Simply being exposed to thinking about and working with scale are experiences that help students become more scale adept. Several authors have pointed out how a sense of scale develops from childhood to adulthood, through repeatedly having both in-and out-of-school experiences dealing with scale [11,15]. Similarly, learning labels for different scales and quantity, as well as developing strategies for measuring, imaging, estimating and using measuring tools are important for this process [11,61].…”

“…Cheek [15] also suggests building relevant experience by visualizing different scales of time, space and multitude through students working with and developing their own object-or event-models of entities outside of human direct experience. For example, Janowska et al [115] found that training students in creative visual imagining is linked with the knowledge and understanding of space, and aids children's understanding of basic astronomical concepts.…”

“…The challenge of helping geography students to develop a deep understanding of geological time, microscopic and vast spans of space and immense numbers is nothing new to geography education (e.g., [15][16][17]). In particular, Cheek et al [15] have formulated the conceptual challenges of scale for students in geography education. Yet, it is still a topic that receives too little emphasis and research, and virtually no attention has been paid to the issue of scale in sustainability education.…”