SPATIAL THINKING TAXONOMIC ANALYSIS OF SCHOOL GEOGRAPHY TEXTBOOKS IN COSTA RICAN SECONDARY EDUCATION
Keywords:
Spatial thinking, Textbooks, School geography, Geographic exercises, Secondary educationAbstract
Spatial thinking is a fundamental skill of geographic thinking that allows a well-thought reasoning of space through representation tools. This type of thinking is subject to be gradually developed by students in the context of formal education, who can develop a better understanding of spatial processes of social and environmental issues of our world. International studies suggest that the development of spatial thinking skills is absent, reduced, or limited in student’s textbooks. The current study addresses through the use of a spatial thinking taxonomy, the situation in which these skills are present in geographic exercises on the most important school geography textbooks used in Costa Rica by seventh grade students in high school. The analysis of 690 exercises showed that only 12% of the questions are associated to learning processes involving some level of spatial thinking development from students. This is mainly associated to spatial primitive concepts, input reasoning processes and a low use of spatial representation tools. The findings aligned with the global trends on the topic related to the low interest on fostering spatial thinking skills on textbooks. This is a call for improving the ways in which this type of skills is being presented, develop and promoted in Geography textbooks.
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