Development of Methodological Tools for Assessment and Enhancement Geospatial Literacy Christos Charcharos School of Rural and Surveying Engineering National Technical University of Athens H. Polytechniou Str. 9, 15780, Zografos Campus Athens, Greece chchar@central.ntua.gr Abstract Recent studies have demonstrated the importance of spatial thinking in sciences and in everyday life. The dissertation consistes of four distinctive but consecutive phases and its main purpose is the development of a methodological tool for the holistic assessment and enhancement of spatial abilities. This need is dictated by the fact that the current international approaches are limited to the assessment of individual small-scale spatial thinking factors, using paper-and-pencil questionnaires, while those of large-scale are usually neglected. In order to achieve that, in the first phase of the dissertation, spatial thinking will be delineated by identifying all its discrete factors through the implementation of Multidimensional Scaling (MDS). Afterwards, the methodological tool will be designed, implemented and evaluated. In addition, it will either be supported by a digital platform (e.g. GEOTHNK) or be a serious game that addresses to everyone (from young people to adults). In the third stage, the often-supported correlation between spatial thinking and problem-solving abilities will be investigated, using appropriate statistical methods. The last phase of the dissertation concerns the enhancement of spatial thinking at formal learning settings through the development of learning activities and scenarios that exploits Information and Communication Tools (ICT). Thus, students will be able to familiarize themselves with the building blocks of spatial thinking (spatial concepts, representation tools and reasoning processes). Keywords: Spatial thinking, small-scale, large-scale, assessment, enhancement. 1 Introduction processes (combining maps and making inferences about the potential areas). Spatial thinking is the cognitive ability to visualize Spatial and geospatial thinking are used as and interpret location, position, distance, direction, identical concepts, but there is an important relationships, movement, and change over space, in difference that distinguishes them. In order to different situations and at different scales (Sinton et realize that distinction, someone should fully al., 2013). It is defined as a constructive synthesis understand the models of geographic space, which of three components: (a) concepts of space, (b) tools can be categorized based on their projective size in of representation, and (c) processes of reasoning relation to human body and the mobility that is (NRC, 2006). The geospatial domain presents an required to comprehend their dimensions. Montello excellent opportunity towards achieving a (1993) considers that the geographic space consists meaningful connection between theoretical, higher- of four major classes: figural, vista, environmental level concepts and tools of representation and their and geographical. The first two spaces are application in everyday life such as locating one’s projectively smaller than the human body or equal home or following directions to an unknown place. to it respectively and can be apprehended without For example, to identify suitable areas for appreciable mobility, while the environmental and constructing a winery based on various criteria geographical space are projectively larger or much (altitude and distance from towns and rivers), larger than the human body and can be perceived someone should grasp spatial concepts (location, via mobility or maps respectively. Golledge (2008), distance, proximity, area of influence and using the previous classification of geographic elevation), use representation tools (maps and space, notes that the term “spatial” refers to the terrain models), and be able to perform reasoning 4th AGILE PhD School, October 30 – November 2, 2017 figural and vista space, while the term “geospatial” According to Booth & Thomas (2000), spatial refers to the environmental and geographical space. thinking includes cognitive skills related to map The report of National Research Council (NRC, reading and making, processes involving 2006) "Learning to Think Spatially: GIS as a representation, scale, transformation, production Support System in the K-12 Curriculum" argues and recall of symbolic information, recognition and that spatial thinking is essential in science and: understanding of spatial projections, coordinate “without explicit attention to [spatial literacy], we systems, geometric configurations, formulation of cannot meet our responsibility for equipping the verbal instructions as well as navigation and next generation of students for life and work in the orientation based on observation and instruments 21st century”. This report marked the need for a handling. This complexity hinders the delineation turn in education towards the enhancement of of spatial thinking because there isn’t an explicit categorization of its factors. Many researchers have spatial thinking and spatial literacy. dealt with this issue and various factors have The results from NRC’s report stress the emerged such as spatial perception, spatial rewarding effects of developing geospatial skills in visualization and mental rotation (Linn & Peterson, increasing the participation in STEM disciplines 1985), visualization, spatial relationships, (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics), flexibility of closure, closure speed and perceptual lacking of which acts as a barrier for students ability (Carroll, 1993), navigation, dynamic spatial leading them to dropout (Utal & Cohen, 2012). ability, environmental ability etc. In addition, Even more, spatial thinking is a vital talent for spatial thinking factors have been defined in a achieving STEM innovation, however due to being variety of ways (e.g. similar descriptions with neglected by educational systems it has been missed different terms, identical terms with different (NSF, 2010). meanings). Furthermore, the number of factors Spatial skills are not innate but can be taught and varies from author to author and ranges from two to cultivated with meaningful results. Their ten (D’Oliveira, 2004). It is remarkable that the empowerment can be achieved through formal majority of them refers to small-scale factors, while learning settings (Hegarty, 2014; Uttal et al., 2012 those of large-scale have not been studied & 2013) and according to the NRC report: extensively. “fostering spatial literacy can be achieved only by The second contribution of the dissertation systemic educational reform”. For example, concerns the development of a methodological tool children's spatial abilities can be enhanced by for the holistic assessment of spatial thinking. So puzzle games or the use of spatial language and far, questionnaires are used to assess a single spatial thinking factor, particularly those of small-scale. gestures by teachers (Newcombe, 2010). Sorby For example, Card Rotation test identifies two- (2009) improved the performance of undergraduate dimensional orientation and mental rotation of students of polytechnic schools through a spatial objects, Hidden Image test evaluates flexibility of visualization course. closure, Paper FormBoard assesses two- This dissertation will try to give more insights dimensional spatial visualization (Ekstrom, 1976). regarding: a) the “families” of spatial thinking In addition, some questionnaires have been abilities by defining the small- and large-scale developed that simultaneously evaluate several spatial thinking factors, b) methods for holistic small-scale factors, such as the Spatial Thinking assessment of spatial thinking, c) the often- Ability Test (Lee & Bednarz, 2012) and the Spatial supported correlation between spatial thinking and Ability Test (Khaing, 2012). Therefore, there aren’t problem-solving abilities and d) the enhancement of any means for holistic evaluation of both small- and spatial thinking abilities through the use of ICT large-scale spatial thinking factors. Moreover, most tools and resources. of the aforementioned questionnaires were developed without the contribution of a geospatial scientist. Thus, spatial abilities are determined in 2 Research Questions the narrow context of psychology and not within the 4th AGILE PhD School, October 30 – November 2, 2017 broad spectrum of spatial thinking (Hegarty et al., • The subject of the fourth phase is the 2002). enhancement of spatial thinking through the The investigation of the relationship between development of educational resources using a spatial thinking and problem-solving skills properly structured toolkit. constitutes the third pillar of the dissertation. Problem-solving skills have been associated with More specific, in the first phase the international other cognitive skills such as critical and reflective literature has been studied in order to record all thinking skills (Demirel et al., 2015), metacognitive small- and large-scale spatial thinking factors. So and innovation skills (Brumer et al., 2014). Recent far, 33 factors have been identified, 20 of which are studies have also examined the correlation between characterized as small-scale factors. Approximately these two cognitive abilities. However, in these 100 participants will take part in an experimental studies only a specific spatial thinking factor is process, which will cluster these factors into associated with a specific type of problem. For categories. Using existing questionnaires that have example, the type of visual representation with the been checked for validity and reliability, a score ability to solve verbal problems (Boonen et al., will be calculated for each factor. Through 2014) or the ability to locate objects with the ability appropriate statistical analyses (Pearson correlation to reason about distances (Mohring, 2015). coefficient or Spearman’s rank correlation The fourth axis of the dissertation concerns the coefficient), the correlation matrix of these factors development of educational resources in order to will be produced, which will also be used as the cultivate spatial thinking through formal learning entry data for conducting multidimensional scaling settings. In the international literature, various (MDS), resulting in the identification of the methods can be spotted, including the use of virtual “families” of spatial thinking. environments (Hauptman, 2011), educational The next phase includes the design and scenarios (Kavouras et al., 2014) or Web-GIS (Jo et implementation of the methodological tool, which al., 2016). In all these methods, the curriculum of will be an extension of the GEOTHNK platform secondary and tertiary education was studied and developed in the framework of a European project the resources were developed targeting specific to promote spatial thinking in formal learning courses. Although there are many educational settings (Kavouras et al., 2014). Firstly, the resources at an international level, those that are functional requirements of the system, the goals to available in Greece are few and limited to the be achieved and the end users, consisting of young development of educational scenarios without people and young adults (ages 13 to 25), will be exploiting Information and Communication defined. At the implementation stage, except for the Technology (ICT) tools. methodological tool, an online questionnaire will also be developed, meeting the necessary standards of validity and reliability. The methodological tool 3 Methodology will provide the ability to interact with the user in order to evaluate spatial thinking. Thus, learning The dissertation consists of four successive phases, which are analyzed below: analytics tools are likely to be used, which will collect, analyze and measure data from the learners, • In the first phase, an extensive literature review for purposes of understanding and optimizing has been conducted in order to identify the learning and the environments in which it occurs. representative factors / “families” of spatial Several learning analytics tools have been thinking. developed, such as SNAPP, C4S, AWE, PASS • The second phase involves the design and (Atif et al., 2013), which will be evaluated in order implementation of the methodological tool in which to identify the one that best suits the needs of the learning analytics tools will be integrated. methodological tool. • The third phase concerns the evaluation of the In the third phase, a preliminary evaluation of the methodological tool and the investigation of the relationship between spatial thinking and problem- methodological tool with a relative small number of solving skills. participants will be carried out in order to identify 4th AGILE PhD School, October 30 – November 2, 2017 any errors and omissions. Once these errors are I would like to acknowledge Eugenides Foundation corrected, the methodological tool will be used to for its financial support through a PhD scholarship. assess spatial thinking of secondary and tertiary In addition, I would like to thank my supervisor students. Additionally, problem-solving skills of Prof. Marinos Kavouras, as well as Dr. Margarita the same students will be evaluated, using the Kokla and Dr. Eleni Tomai for their support. “Programme for International Student Assessment” (PISA) questionnaire (OECD, 2015) or the Adult Literacy and Lifeskills Survey (OECD, 2005), References addressed to people between 16 to 65 years old. Appropriate statistical methods and analyses (as Atif, A., Bilgin, A., Richards, D., Marrone, M. mentioned previously) will be used to explore the (2014) Learning Analytics in Higher Education: A possible relationship between spatial thinking and Summary of Tools and Approaches. In: problem-solving skills. In addition, through a Proceedings of 30th Ascilite Conference, Sydney, regression analysis, the relative contribution of 2014. spatial thinking “families” to the development of Boonen, A., Van Wesel, F., Jolles, J., Van der problem-solving skills will be examined. Schoot, M. (2014) The role of visual representation Finally, the fourth phase concerns the type, spatial ability, and reading comprehension in development of new educational resources that will word problem solving: An item-level analysis in enhance student’s spatial thinking. The curriculum elementary school children. International Journal of secondary and tertiary education will be studied of Educational Research, 68, 15-26. in order to identify the appropriate courses, in the context of which the resources will be developed. In Booth, R., Thomas, M. (2000) Visualization in order to create interactive educational resources, mathematics learning: Arithmetic problem-solving ICT tools will be exploited, thus familiarizing the and student difficulties. Journal of Mathematical students with concepts of space, representation Behavior, 18(2), 169-190. tools and reasoning processes. For example, one idea is to develop a serious game regarding spatial Carroll, J. (1993) Human cognitive abilities: a thinking, using existing game engines, such as survey of factor analytic studies. Cambridge, Unity 3D. Its purpose is twofold: a) to present an Cambridge University Press. alternative to existing methods of assessment and be more attractive to children, as well as b) to serve D’ Oliveira, T. (2004) Dynamic spatial ability: an as means of enhancement and assessment of spatial exploratory analysis and a confirmatory study. thinking simultaneously. International Journal of Aviation Psychology, 14(1), 19-38. 4 Expected Results Demirel, M., Derman, I., Karagedik, E. (2015) A The expected results of this dissertation constitute Study on the Relationship between Reflective its contribution as well as its innovative features, Thinking Skills towards Problem Solving and which are the following: Attitudes towards Mathematics. In: Alevriadou, A., • the delineation of spatial thinking by identifying all its discrete small- and large-scale factors, (ed.) Proceedings of 7th World Conference on • the design, implementation and evaluation of a Educational Sciences, Greece, 2015. methodological tool, supported by a digital platform for the holistic assessment of spatial Ekstrom, R., French, J., Harman, H., Dermen, D. thinking, (1976) Manual for kit of factor referenced cognitive • the correlation, if any, between spatial thinking tests. 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