What does a map-skills-test tell us about Czech pupils?

Abstract

The paper focuses on the impacts of the general education curriculum reform that has placed the pupils’ skills in the foreground of interest. Map skills are one of the most important groups of geographical skills. A test of map skills was drawn up in order to evaluate the level of map skills among pupils aged 11, 15 and 18. Its implementation proved, among others, the elementary assumption that map skills develop along with pupils’ growing age. It was also proven that Czech pupils primarily master cognitively less demanding operations with maps such as location of objects in the map, while more difficult uses associated with map reading and analysis of information posed rather serious problems to them. Statistical figures showed that girls faced the problems significantly more often than boys. Last but not least, it was proven that pupils have not acquired map skills on such a level as prescribed by the curriculum for a given educational level.

Research into map-analysis strategies: theory- and data-driven approaches

“…Reading, analysing and interpreting a map can be included in map use. ere is widespread agreement with regard to the increasing cognitive complexity of the subcategories of map skills, while map reading is considered to be a lower-order (less cognitivelydemanding) map skill and map analysis, interpretation and drawing higher-order (Wiegand 2006;Hanus, Marada 2016;Hanus, Havelková 2019). e categorization of map use skills is consistent with the objective-based taxonomies of cartographic interaction primitives distinguishing two or three main primitives, i.e., identify (commensurate with map reading), compare (commensurate with map analysis) and interpret (Roth 2012).…”

“…Although a considerable amount has been written about what knowledge is essential in map work (Gerber, Lidstone, Nason 1992), map-related pedagogy is poorly developed, fragmented (Wiegand 2006) and highly dependent on the personal teaching concept of each teacher (Hanus, Havelková 2019). Even though significant progress has been made in research into map work over the last 35 years (Riding, Boardman 1983;van Dijk et al 1994;Postigo, Pozo 1998;Clark et al 2008;Ooms et al 2015;Hanus, Marada 2016), there is still a need for an investigation into the cognitive mechanisms which underlie map work, specifically the strategies used when working with maps. is kind of exploration will be of significance for the teaching and learning of map work (Gerber, Lidstone, Nason 1992), as different users may interpret and process the same information in different ways (Ooms et al 2012).…”

Map Skills in Education: A Systematic Review of Terminology, Methodology, and Influencing Factors

“…On the other hand, the individual factors which influence has been investigated most frequently in the reviewed empirical studies include factors upon which participant map skill level depends quite significantly (see Table 3). As is apparent in the case of the tested map skill which was statistically proven to affect map skill level in all eight studies where it was taken into account (Grofelnik & Pap, 2013;Hanus & Marada, 2016;Ishikawa, 2016;Michaelidou et al, 2004;Ooms et al, 2015;Postigo & Pozo, 2004;Umek, 2003;van Dijk et al, 1994).…”

“…No study was oriented solely towards this ability. Map interpretation was tested in participants in association with their ability to read or analyse maps (Allen et al, 2006;Chang & Antes, 1987;Hanus & Marada, 2016;Ishikawa, 2016;Liebenberg, 1998;Pedersen et al, 2005). This connection is also apparent from Figure 5 which depicts factors with significant influence on given types of map skills.…”

“…Of the specific operations, the most popular were without doubt route planning, navigation and self-location on a map (Aksoy, 2013;Alhosani & Yagoub, 2015;Griffin, 1995;Griffin & Griffin, 1996;Hemmer et al, 2013;Lim, 2005;Logan et al, 2014;Malinowski & Gillespie, 2001), which fall under map analysis skills. In contrast, numeric map scale use, another map analysis skill, was rarely tested (Aksoy, 2013;Grofelnik & Pap, 2013;Hanus & Marada, 2016;Hemmer et al, 2013). The individual operations constituting map interpretation and drawing skills (see Figure 1) have been researched similarly often.…”