Browsing by Subject "mentaalikartta"
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(2016)Objectives. As the national curriculum states one objective in elementary school geography and biology is to understand the map of the world and learn its essential nomenclature. Previous studies have mainly focused on children's mental maps of the world drawn on paper so it's interesting to examine whether there are differences on how children perceive map of the world in two-dimensional and three-dimensional format. The objective of this study was to examine sixth graders' mental maps of the world first drawn on paper and then on spherical surface. Differences between those two drawn maps were also examined. Methods. 19 sixth graders from two different classes in one school were part of this study. They draw mental map of the world on paper from memory. Later they did the same but this time drawing was made on spherical surface. Mental maps were given points in five different categories. General quality of the maps was also given a grade. Differences between maps drawn on paper and spherical surface were examined by statistical methods. Results and conclusions. Results of this study revealed that as previous studies have stated, most common flaws were related to the size and shape of the continents. There was no statistical significance between the general quality of the maps drawn on paper and on spherical surface. There was statistical significance between maps drawn on paper and on spherical surface in a category that measured how well continents were drawn on correct hemisphere as maps drawn on spherical surface got lower scores. Results of this study point out that there seems to be very little difference on quality of children's mental maps whether those are drawn on paper or on spherical surface.
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(2016)The purpose of this study was to examine the geographical image of the world of fourth and sixth graders. In addition, the thesis studies how the students' geographical image of the world is changed between the fourth and sixth grades and how the students are familiar with the map of Europe by identifying the European states. The study involved 46 fourth grade and 36 sixth grade students from one primary school in Helsinki. The data consists of mental maps of the world which pupils were asked to draw from memory, and European map task to which pupils named the states. For background information it was asked about the students' travelling experiences as well as information related to their experiences from the use of different types of maps. Mental maps were classified to five basic map types based on the classification by Patrick Wiegand. The results were compared between the age groups. Students' mental map results were also compared to their background information. It was also evaluated how the students identified European states on the map of Europe. Pupils' mental maps were Eurocentric, and Finland and its neighboring areas were emphasized. There were broad variations between the individuals within the age groups. More than half of the sixth graders included almost all the major areas, such as continents, into their mental maps. More than in half cases it was possible to identify the fourth graders mental maps as representations of the world mainly based on the names of the continents and states. However, the fourth-graders often drew Finland's neighboring areas very well. Students with more travelling experiences drew a bit better mental maps than students with less travelling experiences. Also the interest in examining the maps was interrelated to results: Students, who said that they were interested in examining the maps, drew better maps than students, who were not interested in maps. Finland and its neighboring areas were most often identified on the European map task. The differences between the age groups were relatively small in the European map task. Based on the results, students' knowledge about the maps corresponds the level defined in national curriculum.
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