The aim of this research is to investigate student science teachers' opinions about the causes of degradation of ecosystems and the effects of such degradations on the environment. This research focuses on the following questions: What kind of descriptions do student science teachers ascribe to the reasons of degradation in ecosystems? What are…

We investigated how high-performers and low-performers differ with regard to motivation and engagement in a university-level, large-format general education geography course. One hundred and ten students participated in the study. A self-report measure was administered three times (at the beginning, middle and end of the semester). Performance…

University students who do not declare geography as their major are at risk of poor motivation to learn in an introductory geography class. However, research exploring the role of non-majors' motivation is lacking. This study examines motivational factors impacting non-geography students' engagement and performance. The findings suggest that…

Educators and parents alike often wonder what secondary students remember from a class after the semester is over. This study examined that question by looking at test data for participants who retook their semester final 77 days after they originally took it. Students were retested in World Geography, Algebra II and Physical Science. The findings…

Textbooks are an important tool for teaching and learning in high school geography classrooms. But what sort of picture do they provide of places that are different and distant from the countries in which they are published? This study explores this question through a concise analysis of a widely used American world geography textbook, with a…

The introduction conveys some data on learning in India and on designing Geography textbooks in this country. The present paper is reliant on four Geography textbooks, ranging from the 9th to the 12th grade. As regards each textbook, the study considers their learning units, then analyses their structure, the unitary way of designing them, the…

Supply chains and other trade networks are of interest to geographers, due to their ability to connect economic processes at various scales. Relatively recent research, however, suggests that core concepts and topics in economic geography are not being fully and effectively engaged in the classroom environment. With such findings as a motivation,…

Educational policy in the United States is highly decentralized. While the federal government subsidizes education across the country, and despite federal initiatives such as the Common Core and the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers to establish national standards and assessments, most states maintain control over the…

Advocates for geographic information system (GIS) education contend that learning about GIS promotes students' spatial thinking. Empirical studies are still needed to elucidate the potential of GIS as an instructional tool to support spatial thinking in other geography courses. Using a non-equivalent control group research design, this study…

Using a stakeholder debate based on a real-world case of regional construction--that of Turkey's application to join the European Union--improved students' critical thinking in an introductory world regional geography course. Such courses are a staple offering among US geography departments, and often the only exposure of non-majors to geographic…

The document review method, which is a qualitative research method, was used in this study that aims to examine the social studies curriculum and course books in terms of attainments, teaching-learning process and measurement-evaluation process in the context of global citizenship. Furthermore, opinions of social studies teachers on the curriculum…

Through qualitative analysis of 80 student essays, the author examines geographic concepts students describe as holding traits of threshold concepts. With a group of 11 Honors students, the author employs metacogntion, asking students to analyze their own learning to discover their threshold concepts. Recognizing the role of liminality, this study…

Advanced manufacturing continues to be an important sector for emerging and industrialized economies, therefore, remaining an important topic for economic geography education. This article describes a case study created for the Association of American Geographer's Center for Global Geography Education and its implementation. The international…

The authors propose an instructional use for Google Earth (a GIS application) as an anchoring tool for knowledge integration. Google Earth can be used to support student explorations of world geography based on Wikipedia articles on earth science and history topics. We asked 66 Taiwanese high-school freshmen to make place marks with explanatory…

Seven independent groups estimated the location of North American cities using both spatial and numeric response modes and a variety of perceptual and memory supports. These supports included having location markers for each city color coded by nation and identified by name, giving participants the opportunity to see and update all their estimates…