Gis As an Artefact in Geography Education

GIS AS AN ARTEFACT IN GEOGRAPHY EDUCATION:

SOME FUTURE CHALLENGES

Lene Møller Madsen1 and Carl Winsløw

1Corresponding author

Department of Science Education, University of Copenhagen

Universitetsparken 15, building 12

DK-2100 Copenhagen Ø, Denmark

Email:

ABSTRACT

Geographers have always used a variety of physical artefacts e.g. a pluviometer, a map, or a globe as tools to perform their profession. Each of these artefacts has in different ways shaped our ways of being and becoming geographers. Not only have they shaped how we learn but also what we learn. How and with what effect this shaping takes place is not explicit or shared common knowledge but an integrated part of a geographer’s experience, and of the professional development of becoming a geographer. New artefacts are constantly introduced into the profession. A major current change is the introduction of Geographical Information Systems (GIS). In this paper we explain and examine thetheory of instrumental genesis in order to analyse theinterplay between artefacts (such as GIS) and geographical knowledge. Based on a study of first year university students in Denmark we argue that this theory canbe used to inform our understanding of the actual and potential roles of GISin the education of geographers. Our conclusion is that there is a need to recognise GIS as an artefact interwoven with the professional development of becoming a geographer and to start researching the challenges this artefact offers to education and teaching.

INTRODUCTION

The use of GIS has increased both in research and in education at geography departments worldwidein the last thirty years. In recent years this process has accelerated. GIS has become more and more integrated into the field of geography and is sometimes even viewed as a geographical discipline in itself. This has spurred an ongoing debate among professional geographers on how and whether to admitGIS as part of the intellectual core of geography (e.g. Sui 1995, Drennon 2005). Two extreme positions may be posited: at one end GIS is solely perceived as a technical expansion of the toolbox of geographers and something we as geographers have a certain obligation to learn and use but nothing that needs to be addressed in geography in other respects. At the other end GIS is perceived as influencing geographical thinking, knowing and learning in fundamental ways, and in particular as a central part of the geography curriculum at all levels, not just in university training of professional geographers. It thereby influences the way we think and argue as geographers and it needs to be addressed in research and teaching.

However, in teaching GIS these discussions have largely beenbypassed by the real word integration of GIS in geography curricula and by pressure from job markets (e.g. Kemp el al. 1992). This has contributed to the absence of a focus on the role of GIS in our development as professional geographers. We seem to know very little about how students learn GIS andhow GIS influence our geographical knowledge. The theory of instrumental genesis will enable us to address these issues in this paper.

Theresearch that we report on here is part of an ongoing research project which deals with the question of how we learn GIS. Empiricallythis project is based on an educational development project initiated in the fall of 2005which involved teachers at an introductory course on GIS at the Department of Geography, and researchers from the Department of Science Education, both at the University of Copenhagen. One aim of the project was to study the students’ perception of the course and further, through interviews, tests, and questionnaires to obtain a better understanding of how students learn GIS. The results were used to inform the teaching practice within the course and to reflect upon how knowledge of students’ GIS-learning strategies can be used to adjust the use of GIS in teaching. The full results of the studyare described in Madsen and Holm (2006).

The paper is organised as follows. First, we briefly discuss GIS as an artefact for geographical thinking. In the second and main part of the paper, we introduce the theory of instrumental genesis and relate it to our empirical findings of students learning of GIS.Finally we make some brief comments on future challenges for GIS education as we see them.

GIS AS AN ARTEFACT

More than 10 years ago Dahlbom (1995) reflectedon the role of artefacts in modern societies:

‘What used to be tools and machines that we could keep at arms length, has crept up on us, turning into something with which we constantly interact. People and technology have become intertwined. You cannot understand the one without understanding the other’ (1995:89).

We usephysical artefacts all the time mostly without noticing them, like keys, cars, paper, and computers. We interact with the artefacts and wesolve problems and involve our selves in social relations in ways that would be impossible without them.Säljö (2003) describes how our actions are closely related with these artefacts by giving an example with the pocket diary. He concludes:

‘We think in symbiosis with the pocket diary. We exchange meaning, content and sense between the user and the artefact in relation to reading and writing.We can metaphorically speaking park meaningful statements like information in that type of artefacts and call them to life again, when we need them’ (2003:80, own translation).

He further points out that the technology behind common modern artefacts is often invisible and in fact not understandable for the user. Seen in this perspective, learning is about becoming able to use the cognitive resources as information, procedures, and routines which are implicit in the artefact (Säljö, 2003). Our thinking and imagination are deeply affected by these built-in resources of the physical artifacts’ we use.

If we look at GIS as an artefact it is both a physical artefact that requires cognitive skills to operate, and also an intellectual artefact for thinking about geographical issues: for instance, GIS allows the user to performspatial analyses which require additional cognitive skills to carry out and understand. While being a researcher using GIS or a student trying to grasp the features of GIS these two aspects are often not visible due to their highly interwoven character. Further, they are not often made a subject for discussion or analysis, perhaps due to the different perceptions of GIS that exist within the community of geographer’s.

However, GIS is – some would say through the backdoor – increasingly becoming a way of thinking as a geographer and as an artefact it influences both our way of being geographers and practicing geography.

INSTRUMENTAL GENESIS AND GIS

We argue that the theory of instrumental genesis can be used as auseful framework for understanding the educational challenges we face withusing the artefact of GIS within geography. Following the introduction of Computer Algebra Systems(CAS)in mathematics teaching and drawing on work in cognitive ergonomy, mathematics educators developed the theory of instrumental genesis to analyze more deeply the interplay between CASand mathematical knowledge.Many of the ideas that inform this work are complex and space is limited, so some of our argumentsand use of empirical support are necessarily abbreviated, but not, we hope, to the detriment of clarity.

According to the theory of instrumental genesis, the relationship between an artefact and a subject develops through two opposite processes of instrumentalization and instrumentation. Instrumentalization is directed towards the artefact (the subject forms usage schemes related to the artefact) whereas the instrumentation is directed from the artefact towards the subject (experience obtained from usage of it results in modification or creation of new personal scheme beyond the artefact – for instance, modified or new knowledge about geography). Instrumental genesis is the process where the subject through instrumentalization and instrumentation builds an instrument in order to perform a certain type of task (Trouche 2005).The process of instrumental genesis is complex and is ‘linked to characteristics of the artefact (its potentialities and constraints) and to the subject’s activity, her/his knowledge and former work methods’ (ibid:144).

Through instrumental genesis, the scholarly knowledge and the knowledge of how to use the tool merge. The artefact is a tool, a material static object, while the instrument is a personal construction which develops continually even for very experienced users (Winsløw 2006).In relation to GIS the idea of instrumental genesis can be described as a process where GIS as a physicalartefact gradually becomes an instrument for the student.

Based on the theory of instrumental genesis a wide range of research studies has shown that the introduction of CASin mathematics teachingnot only changes the way students learn but also what they learn. For exampleusing CAS to differentiate f(x)= xsinx involves a totally different set of mathematical actions than what is required to differentiate this function using the standard paper-and pencil algorithm (Monaghan 2005).However, what is important is not that the required actions are different but to realise what it means both for the students’ personal learning and for tasks of teachers. In the following we use the theory of instrumental genesis to analyze the role of GIS within geography teaching.

In Madsen and Holm (2006)49 first year geography students were askedabout their first experiences with GIS. Three dominatingstrategies for learning how to use GISwere identified. Type A students prioritize doing the task, i.e. read all the literature, do all the exercises and attend all lectures, type B students prioritize understanding in their approach to GIS, and type C students prefer ‘playing’ with the GIS. These types of strategies indicate that the students have different ways of approaching the artefact. In other words their development of an instrument and processes of instrumentalization and instrumentation aredifferent.

Type A: ‘I attended the lectures, wrote notes and printed the hand-outs out. Before the final exam I read all the assignments including the hand-outs. I made notes so I had an overview of the different concepts and expressions. I attended all the classroom exercises and the ones that we didn’t finish in class we made sure we finished later’.

Type B: ‘I went to both the lectures and the labs. In the labs I focused on understanding what we where doing and not just go along [and finish the exercise]. I read all the course assignments, but only once…. I sat down in the exam preparation period and discussed different topics with the other students’.

Type C: ‘I sat many hours with [the GIS] both at home and in the labs. That has given me a pretty good overview to understand what the lectures were about’.

One concrete caseof how the artefact is interacting with geography knowledge in the process of instrumental genesis occurs in relation tospatialreasoning. In the following example a student describes the process of instrumentation, where the artefact influences herconstruction of knowledge:

‘You have a road and must calculate the area that will be affected by noise in a zone 200 meter from the road.Then I think in concrete GIS: select residence and… then these words and that way to do it, and the structure you have trained through the laboratory classes …. The way you have learned to think is that you choose some things and then they must be selected, overlaid or … make buffers. Buffer gives sense because…if you just think buffer is the straight distance from a point, then it gives no meaning …you see that picture of a circle around a point for instance and then it gives meaning to a start and then you can use the theory to explain why it looks like it does’.

This answershows that the interaction with the artefact influences the student’s knowledge of spatial configuration. She thinksin terms of the functions within the GIS when she creates spatial meaning. However, we need more longitudinal observational studies of the students’ interaction with GIS to inform our knowledge of what different learning strategies signify, not only in relation to the students’ development of an instrument, and to what types of teaching that can support such a development, but also to understand what this means for the students spatial reasoning and understanding of geography in a wider sense.

Within the theory of instrumental genesis it is a central idea that teaching and teaching material can, to some extent, support the students’ development of instruments (e.g. Guin and Trouche 1999). The external support or direction of students’ instrumental genesis is called orchestrations. Different types of orchestrations have been described and developed in the context of CAS, e.g. sherpa-student-orchestration (Trouche 2004).

In our study it was evident thatthe type of orchestration – in this case the layout of the course and the teaching method used– hadimplications for the learning process.The course is organized around two weekly, two-hour computer laboratory classes and two weekly lectures. The laboratory classes use a ‘manual’ containing practical instructions and exercises. The students work two together at a computer.

Especially, the orchestration presented by the manual had profound effects on the students’ instrumental genesis. The manual can be described as a cookbook with recipes to follow and has been made so for reasons that we need not deal with here. This type of orchestration created different forms of work among the students.Some students just follow the instructions and do not link their activities with their theoretical knowledge at first:

‘It is just so schematically and pedagogically put together that you are able to put yourself on autopilot – that’s at least how we have experienced it – and we sit and are almost – not falling asleep, but you get very tired in your head because – and now it is very harshly said – but you just put yourself on autopilot and just do [press with the fingers in the table] what is said in the papers [exercise manual].’

Otherstudents actively oppose this type of practice and try to link their interaction with GIS to their theoretical (e.g. database structure) understanding of GIS:

‘I often stop during the GIS-exercise and think through what I just did on the computer screen’

These different types of responses to the orchestration are linked in a complex pattern to the learning strategies of the students. It seems that type B (thosewho have an understanding oriented approach) tend tooppose the type of orchestration described:they actively stop toreflect during the exercise. On the other hand, type C students (that play with the GIS as a strategy of learning) seem to adapt to the orchestration at first by running through the manual like a cookbook recipe.But when asked how they have learned GIS they tell us about situations where they have ‘played’ with the GIS after class.

Another effect of this type of orchestrationwith the manual is that it creates adominant focus on the instrumentalization process in the classroom. By observing four laboratory classes we found that 83% of thequestions directed by the students at their instructor deal with technical issues of the software or imprecise guidance in the manual (instrumentalization process) whereas only 17% deal with conceptual questions regarding spatial perception (thus supporting the instrumentation process). This seems to affect the students’ instrumental genesis in a partly unconstructive way.

FUTURE CHALLENGES

Educational issues of GIS and geography do not exist in a vacuum independent of the status and role of GIS in the geographycommunity and within GIScience itself.GIS has often been associated with positivist/quantitative methods opposed to critical/qualitative methods within geography.However, especially feminist and participatory geography concerned with GIS have in recent years contested this divide(e.g. Schuurman 2006, Kwan 2006).Critical GIS geographers have argued that to understand how GIS works as a knowledge system and to be able to influence future GIS-research, critique must not be external but be produced from within the GIScience itself. It requires specialist knowledge (Schuurman and Pratt 2002).

In line with that our contentionis that future GIS educational research must be rooted within geography itself, because it changes not only how we learn and teach but also what we learn and know and hence, how we become reflective geographers. Therefore, we need to recognise GIS as an artefact interwoven in the professional development of becoming a geographer and to start researching the challenges it presents to educate students.We are just atthe beginning of understanding how we learn and develop our GISskills and their relations to the professional development of geographers.However, inspiration for how these issues can be addressed can be found in the theory of instrumental genesis within the field of didactics ofmathematics.

REFERENCES

Dahlbom, B. (1995), Göteborg Informatics. Scandinavian Journal of Information Systems 7(2): 87-92.

Drennon, C. (2005), Teaching Geographic Information Systems in a Problem-based Learning. Environment. Journal of Geography in Higher Education 29(3): 385-402.

Guin, D. and Trouche, L. (1999), The complex process of converting tools into mathematical instruments: the case of calculators. International Journal of Computers for Mathematical Learning 3(3): 195-227.