Comparison of map reading skills and geographical knowledge of future officers and geography teachers
Comparison of map reading skills and geographical knowledge of future officers and geography teachers

Author(s): Martin Hubáček, Jaromír Čapek, Eva Mertová
Subject(s): Maps / Cartography, Higher Education , Pedagogy
Published by: Masarykova univerzita nakladatelství
Keywords: map reading; geographical knowledge; cartography literacy; university students;
Summary/Abstract: Map reading is an important skill of the human population which varies from person depending on the age, education and many other circumstances. It is expected that some groups of adult population have higher skills in this area. Soldiers, architects, geography teachers and others belong to this group of people. The skills in reading paper maps are disappearing in current digital world. This is also observed in the case of students of the University of Defense in Brno. 228 students were tested in map reading and geographical knowledge of the Czech Republic to verify this fact. The examination of the map reading skills took place over a standard topographic map at a scale of 1 : 25 000 from the production of the Geographic Service of ACR. Testing of geographical knowledge of the Czech Republic was focused on drawing the map of district towns, rivers and geomorphological units of the Czech Republic. The results confirmed the initial assumptions about the decreasing level of these skills. In addition, there were also significant differences between individual groups of students caused mostly because of previous education as well as the currently studied specialization. The same testing was done on students of the Faculty of Education of Masaryk University in Brno to confirm these conclusions. This group students achieved worse results in map reading, but on the other hand, they have better knowledge of the geography of the Czech Republic.

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