| The improvement of students’ problem solving competency is an important goal of modern school education, cultivating students’ Geographic Problem Solving Competency (GPSC) is a common pursuit of geography curriculum in every country. Diagnosing the development of students’ GPSC through reasonable designed academic assessment is a basic approach to help teachers to improve geography instruction and to promote students’ GPSC. In view of the ineffectiveness of current evaluation of students’GPSC, based on cognitive psychology, geography teaching theory and academic evaluation theory, the nature of geographic problems and the psychological process of geographic problem solving are discussed in this study. Furthermore, considering the current situation of basic education in China and the possibility to improve geography education practice, the theoretical framework and implementary scheme for evaluate students’GPSC are constructed in this study. The main parts are as follows:In the Introduction part, the background and significance of the study are clarified, the purpose and main contents as well as the route and methods of this study are introduced, and the definition of relevant concepts is illustrated. Meanwhile, the main exploring directions of this study are indentified through a brief review of the literacy.In chapter one, the connotation of geographic problems are discussed form four perspectives, including its essence, characteristics, taxonomies and value. Geographic problem is some kind of challenge which derives from peoples’ cognitive needs when they face geographical environment near the earth’s surface. It is situational, embodied, educational, and cognitively complex. Identifying and solving geographic problems has always been of great value to human being including individual middle school student.In chapter two, the psychological process of geographic problem solving is discussed based on the theoretical ideas of several famous psychologists. After the empirical research using think-aloud method, the psychological process of geographic problem solving is described as five sub-process including acquiring geographic information, indentifying geographic problem, extracting geography knowledge, stating the solution and reflecting on the solving process. The results of empirical research indicate that the psychological process when solving geographic problems are complicated and non-linear, and there is significant distinction from one problem solver to another.In Chapter three, the current situation of the evaluation of GPSC in China is examined by three independent researches which separately give look at the subject, the site and the modality of the evaluation. Firstly, an investigation through questionnaire completed by237middle school geography teachers indicates that they are dissatisfied with the current situation of the evaluation, and their awareness and ability to carry out the evaluation need to be enhanced. Secondly, an analysis to three geography classroom teaching cases shows that GPSC haven’t yet been evaluated effectively in classroom at present. Thirdly, a survey on the evaluation of GPSC in National Matriculation Test of China shows that we should go much further to improve the items and scoring method related to the evaluation of GPSC.In chapter four, the criterion and scheme to evaluate students’ GPSC are constructed based on cognitive diagnostic theory and the modification to it. GPSC has been divided into five dimensions, and the performance description of high, medium and low geographic problem-solving competency in these dimensions separately and overall constitutes the criterion to evaluate GPSC. The scheme to evaluate GPSC effectively is a multi-approach integrated evaluation system, which takes diagnosing students’ GPSC development based on geographical curriculum standard as its goal, with a two-stage assessment method including paper-and-pencil test and semi-structured interview. The evaluation system takes elaborately designed geographic situation and problem supplemented by the interview questions as main tools to assess GPSC, and uses double-digit coding method based on SOLO theory to analyze students’ geographic problem solving results, and finally conduct evaluation feedback in both group and individual levels.It is extraordinarily important to carry cognitive analysis through during the whole evaluation process, which is the key to make sure the evaluation system can maintain cognitive diagnostic function and distinguish students at different levels of GPSC.In Chapter five, a practical evaluation of GPSC is conducted as an example to validate the operability of the evaluation system and its value to enhance geography teaching. Over300students chosen form three different levels of schools to participate the test, and the results of it are analyzed.Finally in chapter six, the main conclusions of this study are summarized, the innovations and deficiencies of this study are discussed, and future research directions are proposed. |
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