Secondary school students’ development of arguments for complex geographical conflicts using the internet

ABSTRACT

In secondary school geography lessons, students are encouraged to form argumentatively founded opinions on complex geographical conflicts. For these conflicts, there is no one right solution and the content quality of the argumentation lies especially in the multi-perspective approach to the conflict and the integration of spatial information. The Internet offers a wealth of multi-perspective and spatial information on a great number of geographical conflicts worldwide. However, the digital information is neither checked nor filtered nor didactically prepared. This study examined the ability of 20 German secondary school students in developing arguments on a complex geographical conflict after searching the Internet for information. The students’ information search and their concurrent verbalisations were taped using screen and audio capture technology. The developed arguments have been assessed using defined criteria for argumentations on geographical conflicts. The analysis of the arguments showed that the students included a range of perspectives , which suggests that they were able to use the Internet as a source for obtaining multi-perspective information on the conflict. However, whilst effective digital information retrieval was the pre-condition in understanding the geographical conflict, it has not shown to guarantee the development of a high-quality argumentation.

KEYWORDS:

• Geography education
• argumentation
• Internet
• digital information search
• complex geographical conflicts

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. The study task has been translated from German into English. The original German task was:Eine Elbbrücke in Neu-Darchau: Fluch oder Segen?Lange schon wird über eine Elbbrücke zwischen den Orten Neu-Darchau und Darchau diskutiert. Die beiden Orte werden derzeit über eine Fähre miteinander verbunden und es gibt unterschiedliche Meinungen und Argumente, ob der Bau einer Brücke realisiert werden sollte.Aufgabenstellung: Sollte zwischen Darchau und Neu-Darchau eine Elbbrücke gebaut werden? Begründe deine Meinung, indem du Vor- und Nachteile der Elbüberquerung abwägst.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Eva Engelen

Eva Engelen is a secondary school teacher of geography and English. She currently works as a research assistant for geography education at the University of Cologne. Her research focuses on internet searches and argumentation on geographical conflicts.

Alexandra Budke

Alexandra Budke is a professor of geography education at the University of Cologne. Her research interests include political education, argumentation, intercultural learning and the use of digital media in geography teaching. In her habilitation, she dealt with ideological education in geography lessons in the GDR.