Learning Progressions For Geographic Key Competences In China

Learning progression is a hot research area in international education. At present in China, some researchers in science education has made use of the learning progressions research model for developing research tools and collecting data of progressions. However, there have not been any proper studies on the learning progressions for secondary geography education. Nowadays, fundamental curricula reform, which is focused on key competence cultivation, has the similar goal with learning progression research, aiming at consistency in curriculum standards, instruction and students’assessment. Thus, this study is a localized learning progression research centered on key competences which intends to promote geography education reform in middle school. Besides, this is the first more in-depth exploration of the application of learning progression for geography education in China. The experience and deficiency can be reference for later researchers.Chapter one is the analysis of research background, including the discrimination of the concept "competence" and the research framework of this thesis.Chapter two systemizes the situation of competence education from an international view and analyzes the constructing process of key competences system of geography. Then, there is a comparison of the large scale competence assessment programs to comprehend the structure of "competence".Chapter three is the introduction of learning progressions. This is the research theory and method of the study. It includes the literature overview for learning progression in U.S. and in China, systemization of research methods of Lps, and the development of the research in geography education. Thus, a method of learning progressions for geographic key competences is been constructed.Chapter four is a case study of learning progression for "regional identify". The first task is to confirm the hypothesis of Lps for regional identify based on comprehending the nature of geography, extracting from international geography curriculum documents and the study of student’s cognitive law for "region".Chapter five is the construction and optimization of the assessment instrument of "regional identify". According to the framework of this competence and Rasch model, we design the items and chose a middle school in Shanghai to do the pre-test. Then, we use the Winsteps software to analyze the quality of the assessment instrument and point out some suggestions on revising.This study is still in the stage of initial exploration, so there are some flaws in terms of short research period, rationality of the hypothesis and instrument. Some advice for later research is listed.