An investigation of northwest Arkansas High School students' attitudes towards using GIS in learning social studies

The purpose of this study is to examine attitudes of high school social studies students toward using the technology of Geographic Information System (GIS) and to investigate the effects of gender, age, education, and family income on their attitudes.;The attitudes of high school social studies students towards using GIS technology were, on the whole, positive. There was no statistically significant difference between the mean score for the male students and the mean score of female students on their attitudes towards using GIS technology.;There was no statistically significant difference among the four age groups on their attitudes towards using GIS technology. There was no statistically significant difference among students in the three educational levels (10 th through 12th) on their attitudes towards using GIS technology.;There was no statistically significant difference among four groups, based on family income, on their attitudes towards using GIS. There were no statistically significant interactions among groups base on gender, age, educational level and family income.;The research consisted of three parts: One, the quantitative aspect of the research was completed through a two-part questionnaire in which 204 students attending a high school in Northwest Arkansas responded. The first part contained questions concerning demographic information; the second part contained a 5-point Likert scale to measure their attitudes towards using/learning GIS. Descriptive statistics, Independent t-test, One-Way ANOVA, and tests of between group effects (Two-Way ANOVA) were used to analyze the data collected. The third part contained GIS use information.