Abstract
The potential of geographic information systems (GIS) is found as very significant for geography education and geography as a discipline. Previous research showed that teaching with GIS can help students foster many (not only geographic) skills.
It helps students to obtain, process, analyze, evaluate and present information related to a specific area, and thus develop their spatial thinking (Bednarz, Schee 2006; Lee, Bednarz 2009; Kerski et al. 2013; Král, Řezníčková 2013; Jo et al. 2016). In general, studying with GIS allows students to acquire and further develop more cognitively demanding skills (Uuemaa, Liiber 2014; Rod 2010; Jo et al. 2016).
The skills acquired in this way are related not only to geographical spatial thinking. Students can also use them within non-science subjects and can help them, for example, to improve their critical thinking.
Despite GIS advantages, its implementation in schools is still rather sporadic (Demirci 2009; Král, Řezníčková 2013). Due to the insufficient use of GIS during teaching, a systematic review was created.
This systematic review aims to identify the most common and serious limits of GIS implementation in teaching, and to answer the following questions:. Based on previous research, what are the main limits and barriers to using GIS in teaching?.
Does the perception of limits change over time?. Is the perception and occurrence of limits changing within specific geographical areas? This systematic review was based on PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyzes).
PRISMA is an explicit systematic method for identifying, evaluating, and synthesizing relevant results (Moher et al. 2009). The Web of Science (WoS) and Education Resources Information Center (ERIC) databases were selected for searching for relevant peer-reviewed articles (similarly also Havelková, Hanus 2019).
Based on the previous search and using Boolean operations, a search command was created ("geoinformat* technology" OR "geographic information system*" OR "* GIS" OR "geoportal*" OR "web portal" OR "webportal" OR "geospatial technolog*") AND ("education" OR "pedagog*" OR "teach*" OR "lesson*"). The first part of the command is connected to the definition of GIS, and the second part to the definition based on the research area, which is teaching.
This command has been inserted into the selected databases (see above). In addition, the WoS database search was limited by three criteria.
It had to be an "Article" record type from the "Social sciences" area, and the article had to be written in "English". After removing duplicates, a database containing 2851 records in total was created based on this command.
With this database was further worked on the basis of the PRISMA methodology. Additional selection criteria were selected before the first screening.
If, on the basis of the abstract, the article was evaluated as not meeting the given criteria, it was excluded from the database. A total of nine criteria were included in this selection.
These criteria were:. GIS in education - the article had to be about GIS (GIS, geoportals, interactive map....) in education..
GIS - the article had to be about GIS. In this study the term GIS included for example geoportals, interactive maps, GPS...
Moreover, there had to be presented or tested other map skills than reading. . student - the participants must be a primary or secondary school student, a preservice teacher or a teacher in primary or secondary school. . education - the research had to be about education. . empirical research - it had to be empirical research with a clearly defined methodology (not, for example, lesson). . special populations - the article must not be dedicated to special parts of the population, such as blind. . peer review - articles had to be peer-reviewed and must not be a review. . limits and barriers - the articles were eliminated when it was clear from abstracts that they were not about limits or barriers.. English - the article had to be written in English.
Two evaluators performed this screening of abstracts based on the selected criteria, so a total of 232 potentially relevant articles remained in the database. The full-text of these articles was subsequently downloaded and subjected to a more specific examination, the so-called eligibility.
Eligibility was performed by three evaluators, where one article was always evaluated by two of them, and there had to be an agreement. Most of these articles focus on the effectiveness of GIS usage in terms of skills development or knowledge acquisition and address the desired limits only marginally or not at all.
However, also articles that deal specifically with the limits of GIS implementation in teaching, most often from the teachers' point of view, were found. The identified limits, their categorization and analysis are the key steps leading to their removal, and thus it can lead to more frequent and more accessible use of GIS in teaching.
Specifically, the results of a systematic review can contribute to the creation of a suitable subject/course for students of teaching, respectively teachers in practice, or to adapt existing subjects/courses to their key needs and requirements.