Volume 2, Number 1
Learning Style and Academic Achievement of Middle School Geography Students in Korea
Sung-Hee Yoon and Katheryn S. Atman
Volume 2 (2000), Number 1, Pages 1-17
This study was conducted to identify the nature of Korean students’ learning styles and to determine the relationship between learning style and geography achievement. This study was based the learning style model developed by David A. Kolb and the teaching style models of Svinicki, Dixon, and Sheehy. The Learning Style Inventory (LSI) was administered to 791 Korean middle school geography student and a survey designed to identify a teacher’s teaching style was administered to their teachers. The results showed that the distributions of geography students’ learning styles in Korea were different from previous research studies in other cultures. Environmental considerations, including school experience and educational settings, may be factors in such results. In addition, the data form this study showed that the approach traditionally taken in Korean geography education provided the best learning environment for one study of learning style: that of the assimilator. Through these results, this study suggested that Korean geography education could improve through provision of opportunities for students to learn self-monitoring skills for improving their academic achievements, and for teachers to train in new and various instructional methods in order to meet different students’ learning preferences. In addition, teachers have to be trained in technology education such as geographic information systems (GIS). This study develops baseline data on Korean student’s learning styles in geography education and may aid in making geography textbooks’ contents more concrete and effective.
Keywords: learning style, teaching style, geographic education, Korea
Spatial Cognition of Pre-Service Teachers
Melinda Schoenfeldt
Volume 2 (2000), Number 1, Pages 18-36
This study is concerned with examining the spatial abilities of pre-service teachers through the analysis of sketch maps. A series of t-tests and a single factor ANOVA analysis were chosen to identify differences between the means in the dependent variable, spatial ability, compared to the independent variables of gender, number of geography courses taken, area of study concentration, and self-assessment of one’s sense-of-direction. Data suggest that both gender (p>0.05) and self- assessment of ones’ sense-of-direction (p<0.01) explain significant amounts of the variance in scores on the test of spatial ability.
Keywords: spatial cognition, pre-service teachers, sketch maps
Aerial Photography, Place Related Behaviour and Children’s Thinking
Margaret Robertson and Margaret Taplin
Volume 2 (2000), Number 1, Pages 37-61
This paper reports on research that considers the ways in which younger children interpret aerial photographs and construct patterns and relationships from topographical and land use features within the natural and built environments. The children who participated were six-, eight-, and ten-year-old pupils in two geographically distinct locations (N=82), One school was located in a large town, the other in a rural community. While all children regardless of age showed no difficulty interpreting aerial photographs, there were differences between the two location samples that highlighted the influence of everyday expe4riences of place and provided some evidence of age development. Development aspects were noticeable in the rules used by the children to explain any patterns they detected in the land use placement. Place relatedness was apparent in the vocabulary used and the features recognized.
Keywords: children’s imagery, situated learning, aerial photographs, graphicacy, visual perceptions
Experiences of Geography In Higher Education: The Case of Geography Teachers in England
Ashley Kent
Volume 2 (2000), Number 1, Pages 62-69
This article starts by exploring the history of the ‘gap’ between school and university geography. Then, though a survey of twenty geography teachers on a master’s course at the Institute of Education, University of London, the nature of the divide is explored. Teachers were asked about the nature of their undergraduate geography courses, its relevance to their teaching in school, and which books had the greatest impact on them. The implications of the survey results are then considered.
Keywords: University Geography, school geography, linkages
BOOK REVIEW
Henig, J. R., Hula, R. C., Orr, M. and Pedescleaux, D. S. 1999. The Color of School Reform. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. 301 pages. ISBN 0-691-01634-8
- Fred Shelley
- Volume 2 (2000), Number 1, Pages 70-72