Measuring Navigational Map Reading Competencies: A Pilot Study with a location-based GeoGame

Abstract

Navigational map reading (NMR) is relevant to people’s everyday life, in professional contexts, and in school education. Being interested in fostering children’s NMR competencies implies a test instrument for measuring potential learning progress. Related literature lacks an evaluated test for children that is focused on the spatial aspects of NMR and applicable at different locations. This paper fills this gap by presenting OriGami NMR Test – a test for measuring NMR competencies in children that is implemented in a digital geogame and played with a mobile device in the real-world. In order to enable a transfer of the test to different locations, we offer the reader the general concept of the test, the geogame, as well as a script that automatically scores the participants’ test performances and evaluates the test items for the specific location. In a pilot study, we successfully realized and evaluated the test for two different locations.