Geospatial Thinking and Spatial Ability: An Empirical Examination of Knowledge and Reasoning in Geographical Science

Abstract

This study examined the relationships between geospatial thinking and spatial ability, focusing on knowledge and reasoning about fundamental concepts in geospatial science. Scores on a geospatial thinking test had low correlations with each other, compared to high correlations among scores on spatial ability tests, and the degrees of relationship between geospatial thinking and spatial ability depended on the type of geospatial thinking. Expert geospatial scientists did not outperform students on spatial ability tests, suggesting that expertise in geospatial science might not simply be explained by superiority in spatial ability. The results point to the necessity of targeted instruction for geospatial learning.

本研究检视地理空间思考与空间能力的关联, 并聚焦地理空间科学的基础概念中的知识及论证。相较于空间能力测验分数之间的高度相关性而言, 地理空间思考测验的分数之间有着低度的相关性, 而地理空间思考与空间能力之间的关联程度, 则取决于地理空间思考的类别。在空间能力测验中, 地理空间科学专家的表现并未优于学生, 意味着地理空间科学的专业, 或许无法仅由空间能力的胜出加以解释之。研究结果显示设置目标的引导对于地理空间学习的必要性。

Este estudio examinó las relaciones entre el modo de pensar geoespacial y la capacidad espacial, con concentración en el conocimiento y razonamiento acerca de conceptos fundamentales en ciencia geoespacial. Los puntajes de un test sobre pensamiento geoespacial tuvieron bajas correlaciones entre sí, en comparación con las altas correlaciones entre los puntajes de los test de capacidad espacial, y los grados de relaciones entre pensamiento geoespacial y capacidad espacial dependieron del tipo de pensamiento geoespacial. Los científicos expertos en lo geoespacial no sobrepasaron a los estudiantes en los test de capacidad espacial, lo cual sugiere que la experticia en ciencia geoespacial podría no explicarse simplemente por superioridad en capacidad espacial. Los resultados apuntan a la necesidad de instrucción orientada hacia el aprendizaje geoespacial.

Key Words:

• geographic information science
• geospatial science
• learning and education
• spatial literacy
• spatial thinking

关键词:

• 地理信息科学
• 地理空间科学
• 学习与教育
• 空间素养
• 空间思考

Palabras clave:

• ciencia de la información geográfica
• ciencia geoespacial
• aprendizaje y educación
• conocimiento espacial
• pensamiento espacial

Notes

This work was supported by JSPS Grants-in-Aid 21240075 and 70191723. I acknowledge insightful conversations with Sarah Bednarz and Robert Bednarz at the STGIS conference in Tokyo in September 2011. I thank the students and researchers who participated in the study, Jongwon Lee for permission to use the STAT, and Moemi Kawauchi for assistance in data processing.

1. In the Lee and Bednarz (2012) study, the STAT scores had means of 7.6 to 11.9 and standard deviations of 2.6 to 3.7, depending on samples from different universities. Our participants’ scores had a mean of 14.1 and a standard deviation of 1.3, indicating that they did relatively better than the students in the past study.

2. For the geospatial thinking test, Question 1 was excluded from the confirmatory factor analysis because its score had a small variance and was significantly correlated with the score on Question 3.

3. In the unpublished data by Kastens and Ishikawa, scores on the mental rotation test by fifty-seven expert geoscientists (twelve women) and sixty-eight undergraduate students in a geoscience class (twenty-nine women) were compared, to find no significant differences. Parenthetically, in relation to these nonsignificant findings, Rosenthal's (1979) discussion of the “file drawer problem” might be of interest to the reader.