Abstract
A school world atlas is likely the first systematic cartographic product which students encounter in their lives. However, only a few empirical studies have analysed school atlases in the context of map reading and learning geographical curricula. The present paper describes an eye-tracking study conducted on 30 grammar school students and their geography teacher. The study explored ten tasks using thematic world maps contained in the Czech school world atlas. Three research questions were posed: (i) Are students able to learn using these particular types of maps? (ii) Have the cartographic visualization methods in the school atlas been adequately selected? (iii) Does the teacher read the maps in the same manner as students? The results proved that the students were sufficiently able to learn using thematic maps. The average correctness of their answers exceeded 70%. However, the results highlighted several types of cartographic visualization methods which students found difficult to read. Most of the difficulties arose from map symbols being poorly legible. The most problematic task was estimating the value of the phenomenon from the symbol size legend. Finally, the difference between the students’ and teacher’s manner of reading maps in each task was analysed qualitatively and then quantitatively by applying two different scanpath comparison methods. The study revealed that the geography teacher applied a different method than her students. She avoided looking at the map legend and solved the task using her knowledge.
Highlights
The present paper describes an eye-tracking study conducted on 30 grammar school students and their geography teacher
Three research questions were posed: (i) Are students able to learn using these particular types of maps? (ii) Have the cartographic visualization methods in the school atlas been adequately selected? (iii) Does the teacher read the maps in the same manner as students? The results proved that the students were sufficiently able to learn using thematic maps
School world atlases are crucial in geography education
Summary
According to Pravda [1] and Pravda and Kusendová [2], reading a map (perception and understanding map content) is an essential indicator of intelligence in modern humans. Reading a map is a process of understanding its content through knowledge of the map’s language and methods of its use. It is not wayfinding, but rather how maps are used to obtain desired information from one or more maps to understand the surroundings. But rather how maps are used to obtain desired information from one or more maps to understand the surroundings This definition was adopted from Muehrcke, et al [4]. One of the first researchers who attempted to identify task levels in maps was Olson
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