It Would Be Nice . . .
GIS education bibliography supports researchers
By Joseph Kerski, Ph.D., Esri Curriculum Development Manager

One of the issues that repeatedly arises in discussions with the GIS education community is the need for additional research in GIS education. I think professor Roger Downs said it best in his 1994 article in the Journal of Geography entitled "The Need for Research in Geography Education: It Would Be Nice to Have Some Data." The same could be said for research in GIS education. A fair number of research results have been published over the past 20 years, including at least 50 masters' theses and dissertations, hundreds of articles in research and trade magazines and journals, and chapters in numerous books on geographic information science (GIScience) and other related topics.

The front screen of the GIS in Education Bibliography

Discussions at the Esri Education User Conference and at conferences of the Association of American Geographers, National Council for Geographic Education, Royal Geographical Society, Geographical Association, and National Science Teachers Association in smaller workshops and one-on-one interactions often focus on the continual need for data generated from original research studies in the field.

Research in GIS even has spawned books such as Learning to Think Spatially, published in 2006 by the National Academy of Science. Published this year by Information Age, Digital Geography (Andrew Milson and Marsha Alibrandi, editors) reviews and analyzes the theory, research, and application of geospatial technologies in social studies education. At the beginning of the 1990s, Michael Goodchild, professor of geography at the University of California, Santa Barbara, looked at GIS and said that a new field had been developed—GIScience. In a similar way, I believe that the field of GIS education has evolved to the point that by 2008, we have an international geospatial education community. That community has a small but growing research base.

What does the field of GIS education research encompass? While the field seems rather specialized to those new to it, the field is actually quite extensive in scope. It straddles and pushes the boundaries of geography, cartography, remote sensing, cognitive psychology, sociology, computer science, education, and other fields. The field includes the implementation of GIS in nonformal and formal primary, secondary, and university-level education, in different cultures and educational contexts, all over the world.

It is concerned not only with how the technology of GIS is implemented but also with GIS instruction methods. While it is concerned with teaching about GIS in GIScience and technology courses, it also addresses teaching with GIS in disciplines such as environmental studies, geography, history, mathematics, civics, language arts, and earth science.

In the research, therefore, pedagogical (teaching) models are postulated, tested, and reworked. GIS education research explores such things as how content standards, national curricula, current events, and the educational culture impact the drivers for spatial thinking and geotechnology initiatives in education. GIS education research is also keenly concerned with the effectiveness of thinking spatially and geotechnologies on teachers' professional development, student content knowledge, and teacher and student technical skills.

To measure this effectiveness, assessments and metrics are needed. A growing component of GIS education research develops new models of assessment. Because education, culture, and technologies are all changing rapidly, so is GIS education research. This research is addressing the impact of these changes on the field and performing a fair amount of introspection in the process. Underlying these activities is a common desire to analyze and address challenges in the implementation and effectiveness of GIS in education. The goal is to foster partnerships, programs, and additional research that promote teaching and learning about our communities, regions, and the world through GIS technologies and methods. However, this is not a comprehensive list of the topics of concern to GIS education researchers. In addition, some research areas that will be incorporated into GIS education research in just a few years have yet to be conceptualized.

Joseph Kerski, member of the Esri education team

Why is GIS education research critically needed? For any field to move forward and effect change, it must establish a sound research base. Research informs and drives development in any field. In GIS education, research drives new technological tools, new teaching methods and models, new assessment methods, and much more. Research brings together the community around common themes. On a more practical level, many administrators need research evidence before they are permitted to allow educators to incorporate any new technology into the curriculum. The field is still wide open for new researchers to start a new strand or to build on the past 20 years of research and development.

To help support the GIS education research community, Esri sponsors programs that help organizations serve society and better the environment using GIS technology. Esri-sponsored grants offer free software, hardware, and/or training in many areas. Information about available grants can be found at www.esri.com/grants.

Since 2001, Esri has sponsored the Education User Conference (www.esri.com/educ). This year's conference attracted more than 700 educators and researchers from all over the world. Several conference tracks are offered for researchers to discuss their latest work. GIS education researchers attending the conference can network and build relationships.

In addition, the education team at Esri gathered a group of researchers at the 2007 National Conference on Geography Education and at the 2008 Esri Education User Conference to identify the research that has taken place, major areas of importance to the field, major gaps that still exist in the research, and what the community most needs from researchers to move the field forward.

Esri also supports the GIS education community through the GIS education research bibliography. Since it was started in 2007, the bibliography has grown to more than 500 entries including books, book chapters, conference proceedings, theses, dissertations, and magazine and journal articles. To access the bibliography, select the Research tab on www.esri.com/edcommunity. On the front screen at the site, the user can select by year or type of document, including dissertation, thesis, book chapter, book, conference proceeding, or the Educational Applications of GIS (EdGIS) listserve archive. The user can choose from some of the major journals that publish articles in this field. The search function can be used to find titles, keywords, or authors.

The Research tab at the site also links to the much more extensive Esri Library bibliography at training.esri.com/campus/library/. With more than 67,000 entries, it covers the literature of geographic information system science and technology. The Think Spatially choice on the Research tab also links to additional literature, resources, lessons, careers, and other information on spatial thinking. Finally, another resource is the Spatial Intelligence and Learning Center, funded by the National Science Foundation, at spatiallearning.org/publications_index.html.

As the GIS education research community expands, so too will opportunities expand for support and collaboration. Let members of the Esri education team know how we might better support you in your work.

About the Author

Joseph Kerski is a member of the Esri education team. Before joining Esri, he was a geographer at the U.S. Geological Survey and the U.S. Census Bureau. He taught as adjunct instructor of GIS in traditional and online settings at Sinte Gleska University on the Rosebud Sioux Reservation and at other universities. Kerski holds three degrees in geography. He fosters educational partnerships, creates curricular materials focused on spatial thinking and geotechnologies in education, conducts research in the effectiveness and implementation of these technologies in education, and teaches classes and workshops in geotechnologies and spatial thinking. Kerski believes that spatial thinking and the use of geotechnologies in education and throughout society are critical to our future.