Research On The Visual Literacy Of Geography Discipline And Its Measurement

Geographic visual literacy is put forward against the background of quality education in the new era.The deep learning classroom goal-directed at the cultivation of geographic core competences and the teaching mode of autonomous-inquiry-cooperation urgently require researchers and relevant workers of geographic teaching and learning to re-examine the teaching function and educational value of geographic visual representation,and explore the abilities and qualities that middle school students should possess in mastering and applying visual tools.From the semiotic point of view,this article deeply unscrambles the connotation and taxonomy of geographical visual representation.Based on the constructivist cognitive viewpoint,the learning process model of visual literacy development for middle school students is constructed.With complementation of the research results of grounded theory,the sturcture of geographic visual literacy is refined,including definition,characteristics,core elements and performance standards,which includes the progression levels and behavioral performances.The theoretical construct of geographical visual literacy is established eventually and optimized by the Delphi method.Then,a geographic visual literacy measurement instrument for middle school students is developed and testfied according to the Rasch model and Wilson's four-cornerstone model.With the revised instrument,a large sample test is carried out to analyze and discuss the current situation of middle school students' geographic visual literacy.Finally,the cultivation system of geographical visual literacy is discussed.In the introduction part,the origin,background and significance of the research are discussed,and then the core concepts are defined.Finally,the research framework is established on the basis of literature review,including research objectives,research contents,key problems to be solved,research methods and writing framework.In chapter one,the theoretical basis for the formation of geographical visual literacy is discussed.From the perspective of semiotics,this article clarifies the connotation and extension of geographical visual representation,explains its symbolic structure,summarizes its characteristics,and classifies it.On this basis,intergrated with the constructivism learning theory and the achievements of geographical research,a general model of geographical visual literacy development learning process is constructed taking"The Distribution of the Ocean Surface Current in the World" lesson as an example.It consists of six stages:visual cognitive task management,perceptual processing,geographic imagery manipulation,conceptual processing,integrated expression and reflection on the application of visual tools.Geographic visual literacy is a series of comprehensive process abilities which are developed in the process of geographical visual representation learning.The second chapter focuses on the construction of the theoretical framework of middle school students' geographic visual literacy.First,the definition,characteristics and raw elements of geographic visual literacy are refined according to the learning process model.Furthermore,the core elements are extracted after integrating the raw elements with a larger disciplinary analysis unit based on the grounded theoretical research.Then its progression level and behavioral performances are explored according the relevant theories,such as learning progression theory,SOLO taxonomy theory,and Bloom's educational goal classification.After optimization by Delphi method,it is finally proposed that geographic visual literacy consists of visual tool selecting,visual decoding,Visuospatial thinking,visual expression,visual conversion and visual tool evaluating.Visual tools selecting and visual tools evaluating are not divided further,while the other elements are divided into three levels according to the learning reality.The theoretical framework is applied to the geography lessons "Loess Plateau" and "Atmospheric motion caused by uneven heat and cold".The results show that compared with the traditional concept of map skills,map capabilities or map literacy,its teaching practice is more adaptable.It incorporates all the geographical visual representations into a unified framework,and clarifies their own processing mechanisms and learning functions;its learning progression facilitates elaborate teaching and learning;it is operable to establish a relationship between students' cognitive processing and external learning behaviors;It integrates map knowledge,skills and abilities,and responds to the demands of the era of quality education.The third chapter is to develop a measurment insturment for testing middle school students' geographic visual literacy.The procedure is deliberate designed,taking Rasch model as the measurement method basis,and Wilson's "four-cornerstone" model as the manipulation reference.Six measurement tools are finally compiled according to the test specification table,then testified by qualitative data of small sample and quantitative data of large sample afterwards.The measurement indices as fitting index,reliability,discrimination power,mesurement error,dimensionality,item-subject correspondence foundmentally meet the requirement of quality parameters in Rasch model.However,this research also finds that the discrimination and reliability for subjects are relatively low,the fitting index of some items is not ideal,the dimensionality index exceeds the range of standardized residual coefficient,especially the rating grading structure is unreasonable.Corresponding amendments have been made to these imperfections and improve the tools' quality.Due to the advantages of Rasch model,the developed tools can be used in standardized testing and applied in teaching and learning evaluation.The key point of chapter four focuses on measuring middle school students'geographic visual literacy.Statistical data analyses further verify the tools' reliability and validity.The results show that the studuents" visual decoding and visual expression performances are at a high level,their visuospatial thinking and visual converting performances are at a medium level,meanwhile,their visual tools selecting and visual tools evaluating performances are at a low level.Through these significant analyses of school differences,gender differences and grade differences in geographic visual literacy,the following conclusions can be drawn.There are significant differences among different levels of schools.The higher the level of schools is,the higher the level of students' visual literacy is.There are no significant differences in geographic visual literacy between male and female students,except their visual converting performance.The geographic visual literacy of the third grade stuedents is significantly higher than that of students in first grade and second grade,but there is no significant difference between the latter two.Ultimately,it discusses around former results and puts forward corresponding cultivation system in geography instruction to improve geographic visual literacy.In the final chapter,the main conclusions,innovations and shortcomings of the research are discussed.The further researches can be carried out around the influencing factors,the refined learning progression,the application of computerized adaptive test system,and the teaching experiments in the field of geographical visual literacy.