Rethinking the School Atlas: Connecting Classroom Map Practices with Higher-Order Geographic Thinking
Keywords:
school atlas, map-reading strategies, geographic thinking, spatial thinking, eye tracking, cartographic literacyAbstract
This study rethinks the educational potential of the school atlas by examining relationships among map-reading strategies, visual attention, task performance, and higher-order geographic thinking. A quantitative secondary-data design was employed comprising 23 participants who completed 12 geographic tasks, yielding 276 participant-task observations. Analysis focused on strategy type, response correctness, legend-related behaviour, trial time, fixation count, and scanpath length. Descriptive statistics, chi-square tests, Mann–Whitney U tests, Spearman correlations, and binary logistic regression were applied. Overall, 39.9% of responses were correct, with substantial variation across tasks. Strategy type was strongly associated with correctness: semiology-based, approximate-location, direct-location, and legend-use strategies produced markedly higher accuracy than whole-map scanning. Correct responses were completed with shorter median trial times, fewer fixations, and shorter scanpaths than non-correct responses. Trial time, fixation count, and scanpath length were negatively associated with correctness, indicating that prolonged visual search generally accompanied poorer performance. Accuracy was descriptively higher when the legend was perceived, although this association was not statistically significant. The findings suggest that successful map interpretation depends more on selective, purposeful visual processing and strategic use of cartographic information than on extended viewing. The study supports a shift from passive atlas consultation toward classroom activities emphasizing interpretation, comparison, inference, pattern recognition, and evidence-based geographic reasoning, thereby positioning the school atlas as an active tool for developing advanced geographic thinking. These results also indicate that map-based learning should explicitly develop strategic attention, legend interpretation, and efficient information selection to strengthen students’ geographic reasoning in classrooms more effectively.
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