The Influence of Textbook Visual Quality of Geographical Phenomena on Children’s Conceptions

Abstract

The aim of the presented study is to evaluate the influence of the quality of visuals in printed geography textbooks on the character of children’s conceptions using the example of the geographical location concept. Visuals are a graphical representation of a certain phenomenon. A two-tier diagnostic test without and with three types of high and low quality physical-geographical visuals was used to achieve this objective. The research study among elementary school students (n = 434) has shown that students are mostly unable to work effectively with visuals due to their inappropriate properties such as headline quality or factual errors.

Keywords:

• visual
• geography textbook
• learning from visuals
• misconception
• children’s conceptions

Additional information

Funding

This article was supported by SGS UJEP (project no. UJEP-SGS-2020-53-004-3 Diagnosis of children's conceptions of selected geographical phenomena in pupils).

Notes on contributors

Petr Trahorsch

Petr Trahorsch is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Geography at the Faculty of Science of Jan Evangelista Purkyně University in Ústí nad Labem, Czechia. The main area of his research is geographical education, especially visuals in geography textbooks, and the assessment of their usability. A secondary area of his research are factors influencing the formation of children's conceptions and the emergence of misconceptions.

Jan Daniel Bláha

Jan D. Bláha is an Associate Professor at the Department of Geography, Faculty of Science, J. E. Purkyně University in Ústí nad Labem, Czechia. Among other things, his research deals with the issue of visual and esthetic function of cartographic works, he integrates this topic into the research of the visual component of teaching aids (including textbooks) with a focus on pupils' cartographic skills.