University Students’ Conceptualization and Interpretation of Topographic Maps

Abstract

This study investigates the strategies and assumptions that college students entering an introductory physical geology laboratory use to interpret topographic maps, and follows the progress of the students during the laboratory to analyze changes in those strategies and assumptions. To elicit students' strategies and assumptions, we created and refined a topographic visualization test that was administered before and after instruction to 26 students during the first semester of the study and to 92 students during the second semester. To more deeply understand how students think about and conceptualize topographic maps, we focused on eight individual students who were interviewed about their pretest and posttest answers as well as videotaped during three laboratory sessions. We found that even students who claim never to have worked with topographic maps often perform impressively on their pretests by making useful assumptions about symbolic topographic information. Some students, however, begin with less productive assumptions that may be unfamiliar to some instructors (e.g., thinking that the spacing of contour lines indicates elevation instead of slope). Initial success should not be misinterpreted, however, as an integrated understanding of topographic maps. Only in posttest interviews do most students express explanations integrating multiple normative assumptions. In addition to highlighting the strategies and assumptions that college students use to interpret topographic maps, we outline the implications of these findings for the design of learning objectives, curricular activities, and assessments for topographic lessons in introductory college geology courses and the training of future geoscientists.

Learning to interpret topographic maps: Understanding layered spatial information

“…Two skills are fundamental for successful map usage: (1) knowledge of how elevation information about the terrain is encoded using contour lines (i.e., elevation information); and (2) an understanding of how the two-dimensional contour patterns on a topographic map align to three-dimensional structures in the real world (i.e., shape information). A survey of the relevant literature suggests that novices have difficulty with both of these tasks (e.g., Clark et al ., 2008; Rapp et al ., 2007). In this experiment, we use two kinds of gestures, pointing and tracing gestures and three-dimensional gestures, both helpful in understanding complex two-dimensional diagrams (e.g., Atit et al ., 2013; Atit et al ., 2015), to bolster novices’ skills.…”

“…Topographic maps are a “graphic representation of the three dimensional configuration of the earth” (Geographic Information Technology Training Alliance, 2016) and are commonly used to help gain a three-dimensional understanding of the landscape of a region (Dennis, 1972). Although frequently used by experts, these maps are particularly difficult for students to comprehend (e.g., Clark et al ., 2008; Rapp, Culpepper, Kirkby, & Morin, 2007).

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2D Cartography Training: Has the Time Come for a Paradigm Shift?

“…While topographic maps have been and continue to be used for teaching cartography, researchers such as Griffin and Lock [5] found that there are inherent perceptual problems in contour line interpretation. These difficulties have generated problems of frustration/motivation among students [6][7][8][9]. Further, issues such as landform representation, spatial skills acquisition, or processes of spatial knowledge construction with different forms of relief representation continue to be active fields of research including recent works by Carbonell [10,11], Collins [12], Tillman, Albrecht and Wunderlich [13], Eynard and Bernhard [14], and Brooke and Bernhard [3].…”

The Lay of the Land: Sensing and Representing Topography

“…Learning to read topographic maps is difficult (e.g. Clark et al 2008;Rapp et al 2007), yet skill with them is essential to geoscience, architecture, urban design, and landscape planning (Petcovic et al 2009), and for emergency responders, e.g., when asked to find landing sites for rescue helicopters (Wilkening & Fabrikant 2011).…”

“…Learning to read topographic maps is difficult (e.g. Clark et al 2008;Rapp et al 2007), yet skill with them is essential to geoscience, architecture, urban design, and landscape planning (Petcovic et al 2009), and for emergency responders, e.g., when asked to find landing sites for rescue helicopters (Wilkening & Fabrikant 2011).Efforts to devise ways to facilitate acquisition of skills with topographic maps have often focused on providing additional visual information, such as various kinds of shaded relief (e.g. Phillips et al 1975;Pingel & Clarke 2014;Potash et al 1978), stereo effects (Rapp et al 2007), color-enhanced contour lines (e.g., Taylor et al 2004) or direct www.thebalticyearbook.org…”