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Geospatial expertise draws on and recognizes a vast array of seemingly unrelated interconnections allowing the geographer to find solutions to otherwise incomprehensible problems. Geospatial thinking involves both time and space, acknowledges cause-and-effect relationships of geographic phenomena at multiple scales, and recognizes the impact of spatial and temporal scale on processes. The complexity of geographic thinking necessitates an equally complex set of learning experiences that collectively are characterized by the professional geographer. Due to the inherent complexity of geospatial expertise, its nuanced relationship to spatial thinking, and a lack of research on how individuals attain geospatial expertise, we organized an interdisciplinary group of experts to present their perspectives on developing geospatial expertise in this special edition. In this introduction, we review geospatial expertise and distinguish it from spatial thinking, review research on developing geospatial expertise, and end with recommendations for future research. Through these reviews and recommendations, this introduction provides background context for the articles in this special edition and elucidates their connections. Given the complexity of geospatial expertise, it is only through connecting researchers and educators across multiple disciplines that the nature of one of the most integrative professional disciplines – that of the geographer – can be fully understood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Family environment has the major impact on children’s academic development. The aim of this study was to research the relationship between family capital and academic achievement in geography. Further, geospatial thinking, as a form of spatial thinking focusing on the scale of the geographical environment, is closely related to family environment and academic achievement in geography. Thus, the study was more specifically to apply a mediation model to explore the potential mediating role of geospatial thinking. Methods: A total of 1,037 upper-secondary-school students in Western China were surveyed using t the Family Capital Questionnaire and the Geospatial Thinking Test Questionnaire. SPSS (version 26.0) was used for descriptive statistical analysis and correlation analysis. The PROCESS plug-in (version 4.0) was used to test the mediating effect of geospatial thinking. Results: (1) The correlation analysis showed that family capital has a positive effect on academic achievement in geography and is related to geospatial thinking. Moreover, geospatial thinking exerts a positive effect on academic achievement in geography. (2) The results of mediation analysis indicated that geospatial thinking plays mediating and buffering roles in the relationship between family capital and academic achievement in geography after controlling for family residence and gender. The direct and indirect effects accounted for 75.32% and 24.68% of the total effect, respectively. Conclusion: The results indicated that family capital not only affected academic achievement in geography directly but also indirectly through geospatial thinking. This finding provides some ideas for the development of geography education, which suggests that geography educators need to pay more attention to the influence of the family environment on students’ geography learning in curriculum design and teaching processes. Also, the mediating role of geospatial thinking further uncovers the mechanisms underlying the academic achievement in geography. Therefore, it is necessary to focus on both students’ family capital and geospatial thinking in the process of geography learning, and carry out more geospatial thinking training to improve academic achievement in geography. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An individual's sense of place has a motivational impetus on how s/he relates to the place. Thus, environmentally sustainable behaviors are deemed as products of a person's sense of place. However, little is known about the extent to which geospatial thinking conditions a person's sense of place. Accordingly, this study builds a theoretical model that examines the influence of geospatial thinking on a person's sense of place. Further, it investigates the mediating role of creativity. A survey data from 1037 senior high school students in western China was utilized to test the theoretical model. The findings indicate that students' geospatial thinking has a positive relationship with their creative behaviors and sense of place. Students' creativity was found to facilitate their sense of place. Moreover, students' creativity was discovered to mediate the relationship between geospatial thinking and sense of place. These results provide useful implication for the cultivation of students' sense of place. In this regard, geography education has the critical role in improving students' geospatial thinking skills to stimulate creative behaviors for a better sense of place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined how the family capital of upper secondary school students impacted on their geospatial thinking skills and explored the mediating effect of their academic achievement in geography. A total of 1,018 upper secondary school students participated. The results of our mediation analysis conducted using the PROCESS modeling tool revealed that family capital has a direct predictive effect on students' geospatial thinking and an indirect predictive effect via their academic achievement in geography. Therefore, this paper aims to redistribute family capital, so as to effectively apply it to the cultivation of students' geographic academic achievement and geographic spatial thinking ability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Few studies have examined how family capital affects the sense of place, and the effect of spatial thinking on the relationship between the two is unclear. This study constructs a mediation model to examine the impact of family capital on sense of place and the mediation effect of geospatial thinking. A total of 1,004 upper-secondary-school students were surveyed using the Family Capital Questionnaire, the Geospatial Thinking Test, and the Sense of Place Scale. The correlation analysis showed that family capital has a positive effect on both sense of place and geospatial thinking. Moreover, there is also a significant positive correlation between geospatial thinking and sense of place. The results of mediation analysis indicated that geospatial thinking plays mediating and buffering roles in the relationship between family capital and sense of place after controlling for gender and residential address. The direct and indirect effects accounted for 73.31 and 26.69% of the total effect, respectively. Specifically, family capital is a significant positive predictor of both sense of place and geospatial thinking, and geospatial thinking partially mediates the relationship between family capital and sense of place. Students from better family backgrounds are more likely to have a better geospatial thinking and sense of place, as well as geospatial thinking promotes the development of a sense of place. Therefore, both family capital and geospatial thinking should be considered when we want to examine and develop individuals’ level of sense of place.

Geospatial thinking is crucial for understanding the spatial order of the world. The factors influencing geospatial thinking deserve attention in geography education. Utilizing correlation analysis, we found that general intelligence, geographic knowledge, and geographic learning interest had a significant influence on geospatial thinking. This article attempts to understand how these factors affect geospatial thinking by using structural equation modeling. The results indicate that they impacted geospatial thinking directly. In addition, general intelligence and geographic learning interest had an indirect impact on geospatial thinking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Geospatial thinking and reasoning (GSTR) skills are currently not routinely integrated into public health curriculum for undergraduate students in colleges or universities. However, integrating GSTR skills into curriculum has been shown to increase spatial thinking skills, which leads to better cognitive thinking and problem solving skills. An Examining Vector-Borne Disease Transmission (EVBDT) curriculum unit was developed using the geospatial curriculum approach to investigate malaria, dengue fever, and zika disease spread in the environment, using patterns, data, and sociodemographic factors. The purpose of this design-based research study was to understand public health content learning and GSTR skill acquisition through use of the geospatial curriculum approach among students (n = 95) enrolled in undergraduate public health content classes. Data sources included a classroom observation instrument; pretest and posttest measures for the Spatial Habits of the Mind survey; a pretest, Posttest 1, and delayed Posttest 2 EVBDT assessment that included public health content and GSTR skill items; and a postimplementation survey to understand students' perceptions of geographic information systems use in the curriculum. Findings revealed significant mean differences showing growth in public health content learning and GSTR skills. The findings provide support that Web geographic information systems with appropriate curriculum design can engage students and affect both learning outcomes and GSTR skills in public health education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Geospatial thinking is essential to the visualization⁻interpretation processes of three-dimensional geographic information. The design of strategies for the interpretation of the Earth’s surface which allow the development of students’ geospatial thinking poses a challenge in higher education. In geospatial education, we often see a practical approach where students are trained in specific GIS and/or geotechnologies. However, in the first stages of geospatial education, geographic literacy and geospatial thinking processes can be supported better through easy-to-use technologies. In this paper we show the results of two workshops performed with engineering students using visuospatial displays in an easy-to-use 3D software environment. This teaching approach improved students’ geospatial thinking, measured using the Topographic Map Assessment (TMA) test—a battery of seven tasks related to relief interpretation along with 18 exercises. Participants also completed a questionnaire relating to the following usability topics: operation (application), improvement, implications for education, and understanding of the concepts related to relief interpretation. The results showed mean gains between 10.7% and 12.6% of the highest score for the TMA. This, together with the results of the questionnaire, confirms the usefulness of this teaching approach using easy-to-use 3D technologies for developing geospatial thinking.

Learning with Web-based geographic information system (Web GIS) can promote geospatial thinking and analysis of georeferenced data. Web GIS can enable learners to analyze rich data sets to understand spatial relationships that are managed in georeferenced data visualizations. We developed a Web GIS plate tectonics simulation as a capstone learning activity in an undergraduate Earth Science course that integrated geological and geophysical data sets to allow students to dynamically reconstruct ancient plate motions. To assess the effectiveness of the Web GIS tectonics simulation, all 12 students in the course submitted three artifacts that were assessed with a reliable, criterion-based rubric. The students also completed a survey to assess the effectiveness of the online interface and its capability to promote geospatial thinking. The students preformed quite well on the assignment. The survey results supported that the students perceived the Web GIS tectonics simulation as having helped them think geospatially. Our Web GIS design and embedded capabilities allowed students to advance and confirm their understandings about the tectonics concepts. Student responses indicated that the Web GIS supported their geospatial analysis for making inferences about space, geospatial patterns, and geospatial relationships among the data that were visualized in the Web GIS. Design features that contributed to the successful implementation are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Family environment has the major impact on children's academic development. The aim of this study was to research the relationship between family capital and academic achievement in geography. Further, geospatial thinking, as a form of spatial thinking focusing on the scale of the geographical environment, is closely related to family environment and academic achievement in geography. Thus, the study was more specifically to apply a mediation model to explore the potential mediating role of geospatial thinking., Methods: A total of 1,037 upper-secondary-school students in Western China were surveyed using t the Family Capital Questionnaire and the Geospatial Thinking Test Questionnaire . SPSS (version 26.0) was used for descriptive statistical analysis and correlation analysis. The PROCESS plug-in (version 4.0) was used to test the mediating effect of geospatial thinking., Results: (1) The correlation analysis showed that family capital has a positive effect on academic achievement in geography and is related to geospatial thinking. Moreover, geospatial thinking exerts a positive effect on academic achievement in geography. (2) The results of mediation analysis indicated that geospatial thinking plays mediating and buffering roles in the relationship between family capital and academic achievement in geography after controlling for family residence and gender. The direct and indirect effects accounted for 75.32% and 24.68% of the total effect, respectively., Conclusion: The results indicated that family capital not only affected academic achievement in geography directly but also indirectly through geospatial thinking. This finding provides some ideas for the development of geography education, which suggests that geography educators need to pay more attention to the influence of the family environment on students' geography learning in curriculum design and teaching processes. Also, the mediating role of geospatial thinking further uncovers the mechanisms underlying the academic achievement in geography. Therefore, it is necessary to focus on both students' family capital and geospatial thinking in the process of geography learning, and carry out more geospatial thinking training to improve academic achievement in geography., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2023 Zhang, Su, Liang, Xu, Wang, Yu and Ge.)

Since the National Research Council (2006) reportLearning to Think Spatiallyformalized geospatial thinking, researchers and educators have recognized the importance of investigating and understanding geospatial thinking. Conceptual frameworks have been developed and applied to individual research projects. Although useful in these contexts and potentially extendable to other related inquiries, they also overlap and conflict with one another. Moreover, the separate frameworks are built on different constructs, resulting in a disparate rather than a cohesive theoretical foundation for geospatial thinking. This article synthesizes existing frameworks and generates a model that represents conceptual advances and provides a foundation for research question generation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spatial thinking and learning are essential components of geography education. The National Research Council's 2006 report "Learning to Think Spatially" emphasized that people vary with respect to performance on spatial tasks. This pilot study at a large Texas university investigated geospatial thinking variances among undergraduate students based on academic experience of students. This exploratory study uses the Geospatial Thinking Survey (GTS), based on the Spatial Thinking Ability Test (STAT) endorsed by Association of American Geographers (2006) and published by Lee and Bednarz (2012), to assess the geospatial thinking differences of undergraduate students. The results show that academic major, academic classification, and exposure to academic geography influence comprehension of geospatial concepts, use of geospatial representation tools, and application of geospatial reasoning processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Knowledge around geospatial technologies and learning remains sparse, inconsistent, and overly anecdotal. Studies are needed that are better structured; more systematic and replicable; attentive to progress and findings in the cognate fields of science, technology, engineering, and math education; and coordinated for multidisciplinary approaches. A proposed agenda is designed to frame the next generation of research in this field, organized around four foci: (1) connections between GST and geospatial thinking; (2) learning GST; (3) curriculum and student learning through GST; and (4) educators’ professional development with GST. Recommendations for advancing this agenda are included. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Geospatially enabled learning technologies may enhance Earth science learning by placing emphasis on geographic space, visualization, scale, representation, and geospatial thinking and reasoning (GTR) skills. This study examined if and how a series of Web geographic information system investigations that the researchers developed improved urban middle-school learners’ GTR skills and their understanding of tectonics concepts. Paired-samplettests for analyses of tectonics content knowledge and GTR achievement measures revealed statistically significant gains from pretest to posttest (p<.001) with large effect sizes. The findings provide support that GTR related to tectonics can be learned with appropriately designed learning activities using Web-based geographic information systems. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A potential method for teaching geospatial thinking and reasoning (GTR) is through geospatially enabled learning technologies. We developed an energy resources geospatial curriculum that included learning activities with geographic information systems and virtual globes. This study investigated how 13 urban middle school teachers implemented and varied the enactment of the curriculum with their students and investigated which teacher- and student-level factors accounted for students' GTR posttest achievement. Data included biweekly implementation surveys from teachers and energy resources content and GTR pre- and posttest achievement measures from 1,049 students. Students significantly increased both their energy resources content knowledge and their GTR skills related to energy resources at the end of the curriculum enactment. Both multiple regression and hierarchical linear modeling found that students' initial GTR abilities and gain in energy content knowledge were significantly explanatory variables for their geospatial achievement at the end of curriculum enactment, p < .001. Teacher enactment factors, including adherence to implementing the critical components of the curriculum or the number of years the teachers had taught the curriculum, did not have significant effects on students' geospatial posttest achievement. The findings from this study provide support that learning with geospatially enabled learning technologies can support GTR with urban middle-level learners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Few studies have examined how family capital affects the sense of place, and the effect of spatial thinking on the relationship between the two is unclear. This study constructs a mediation model to examine the impact of family capital on sense of place and the mediation effect of geospatial thinking. A total of 1,004 upper-secondary-school students were surveyed using the Family Capital Questionnaire, the Geospatial Thinking Test, and the Sense of Place Scale. The correlation analysis showed that family capital has a positive effect on both sense of place and geospatial thinking. Moreover, there is also a significant positive correlation between geospatial thinking and sense of place. The results of mediation analysis indicated that geospatial thinking plays mediating and buffering roles in the relationship between family capital and sense of place after controlling for gender and residential address. The direct and indirect effects accounted for 73.31 and 26.69% of the total effect, respectively. Specifically, family capital is a significant positive predictor of both sense of place and geospatial thinking, and geospatial thinking partially mediates the relationship between family capital and sense of place. Students from better family backgrounds are more likely to have a better geospatial thinking and sense of place, as well as geospatial thinking promotes the development of a sense of place. Therefore, both family capital and geospatial thinking should be considered when we want to examine and develop individuals' level of sense of place., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2022 Zhang, Liang, Su, Li, Ge, An and Xu.)

Geospatial thinking skills inform a host of library decisions including planning and managing facilities, analyzing service area populations, facility site location, library outlet and service point closures, as well as assisting users with their own geospatial needs. Geospatial thinking includes spatial cognition, spatial reasoning, and knowledge discovery. A lack of understanding of librarians' geospatial thinking called for some preliminary investigation into the geospatial thinking skills of information professionals. Findings from this pilot study's performance task indicate geospatial thinking skills improved for ten information professionals tested after some training with geospatial technologies. A summary provides recommendations on how to both improve future study of geospatial thinking and suggestions on ways to incorporate geospatial thinking into library and information science curricula. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the field of environmental sustainability and landscape management, geospatial thinking is necessary. A good level of geospatial thinking is related to academic success in engineering degrees. It is relevant, therefore, to detect the possible deficiencies that university students may have in tasks related to geospatial thinking. This research presents the results of a 2014‒2019 multiyear study with agricultural engineering students, in which seven geospatial tasks were analyzed. The statistical analysis shows that geospatial tasks related to slope, stream/water flow, visibility, and relief interpretation are the best at predicting the final course mark. The present research provides quantitative data on the efficiency that four technologies have to reinforce geospatial thinking focused on each task. Augmented Reality is an appropriate 3D technology for geospatial tasks related to route search, stream/water flow, and elevation points. SketchUp Make 2017 and Autodesk 123D Make showed their potential to solve tasks related to terrain slope and visibility analysis. Spatial Data Infrastructure has given the best results in geospatial tasks related to the photointerpretation of the relief and with topographic profiles of the terrain. Our findings will help teachers to select the most appropriate geospatial tasks to include in their courses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Geospatial thinking is essential to the visualization–interpretation processes of three-dimensional geographic information. The design of strategies for the interpretation of the Earth's surface which allow the development of students' geospatial thinking poses a challenge in higher education. In geospatial education, we often see a practical approach where students are trained in specific GIS and/or geotechnologies. However, in the first stages of geospatial education, geographic literacy and geospatial thinking processes can be supported better through easy-to-use technologies. In this paper we show the results of two workshops performed with engineering students using visuospatial displays in an easy-to-use 3D software environment. This teaching approach improved students' geospatial thinking, measured using the Topographic Map Assessment (TMA) test—a battery of seven tasks related to relief interpretation along with 18 exercises. Participants also completed a questionnaire relating to the following usability topics: operation (application), improvement, implications for education, and understanding of the concepts related to relief interpretation. The results showed mean gains between 10.7% and 12.6% of the highest score for the TMA. This, together with the results of the questionnaire, confirms the usefulness of this teaching approach using easy-to-use 3D technologies for developing geospatial thinking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]