This section was edited by Reginald Golledge, Department of Geography, University of California Santa Barbara.

This unit is part of the NCGIA Core Curriculum in Geographic Information Science. These materials may be used for study, research, and education, but please credit the authors, Timothy Nyerges and Teg Golledge, and the project, NCGIA Core Curriculum in GIScience.  All commercial rights reserved.  Copyright 1997 by Timothy Nyerges.

Your comments on these materials are welcome. A link to an evaluation form is provided at the end of this document.

---

Advanced Organizer

Unit Topics

Learning Outcomes

Instructor's Notes

Table of Contents

Metadata and Revision History

1. Introduction

• Questions are designed to encourage thinking and learning.
• They do this by posing a problem which requires an answer.
 
• Answers sometimes involve creatively integrating, rearranging, or manipulating bits of information stored in long-term memory or currently being perceived.
• Often hitherto unnoticed connections between facts or constructs may be made when answering a question.
 
• Deriving inspiration from Slater’s monograph Learning Through Geography (1982), Nyerges has developed a set of critical thinking questions to stimulate students’ curiosity about geography and GIS (Nyerges, 1991).

 
• Nyerges (1991) suggests that geographic questions can be categorized into those dealing with:
1.     location and extent;
2.     distribution and pattern or shape;
3.     spatial association;
4.     spatial interaction; and
5.     spatial change.
 
• In documenting some of the essential steps and stages one goes through when asking and solving geographic questions, the following material draws extensively on the works of Piper (1976), Slater (1982) Nyerges (1991), and Golledge (1996).

2. The process of enquiry

• To begin, consider the following summary of the process of enquiry
• Table 1 - The process of enquiry - the skills dimension
 
• To elaborate on the above table, Slater (1982) and later Nyerges (1991) have discussed each of the tabular components in the following ways.

2.1. Research the Questions and Gather Data

• Step 1: Identify and clarify questions, issues and problems.

1. Identify central questions and issues.
2. Identify value questions.
3. Detect ambiguity and vagueness of statement.
4. Restate questions, problems, issues in clear, precise, unambiguous terms.
5. Identify elements of a question, problem, issue in need of further clarification.
6. Identify the "valuing" elements in a question, issue, problem.
7. Identify areas of conflict (especially conflicting values) in a question, issue, problem.
8. Identify areas in need of investigation.
9. Distinguish between direct questions and hypothetical questions.
10. Formulate hypotheses.
11. Identify appropriate procedures for testing hypotheses.

1. Locate data.
2. Locate sources of data.
3. Use of data gathering techniques (e.g. sampling, surveys, questionnaires, interviews, content analysis, focus group, case studies and so on).
4. Select appropriate data.
5. Record data.
6. Classify data.
7. Summarize data.
8. Present data.
9. Select appropriate techniques for treatment of data.

2.2. Process the Data

• Step 1: Interpret the data.

1. Understand form in which data is presented.
2. Retrieve basic information from single data source.
3. Retrieve detailed/less obvious information from single data source.
4. Retrieve complex information from single data source.
5. Retrieve information requiring use of more than one data source.
6. Compare data from different sources.
7. Distinguish between fact and opinion/speculation.
8. Distinguish between specific facts and general facts (empirical generalizations)
9. Distinguish between factual statements and conditional or hypothetical statements.
10. Distinguish between factual statements and value judgements.
11. Distinguish between factual statements and normative statements.

• Step 2: Analyze the data.

1. Recognize underlying assumptions.
2. Following a line of argument (especially where this from an unfamiliar/unconventional point of view)
3. Determine the point of view of author.
4. Detect logical flaws in an argument.
5. Detect unwarranted assertions, inferences, conclusions, etc.
6. Detect relationships, e.g., causal, chronological, concurrent, etc.
7. Make warranted inferences/extrapolations from the data.
8. Make warranted interpolations where there are gaps in the data.
9. Draw warranted conclusions from the data.
10. Make warranted predictions of trends, consequences, etc. from the data.
11. Discern factors which may affect the accuracy of predictions.
12. Formulate hypotheses to account for effects observed in the data.

• Step 3: Evaluate evidence.

1. Recognize stereotypes and cliches.
2. Detect emotive elements in the presentation.
3. Detect bias and prejudice in the presentation.
4. Detect motive/purpose in the presentation.
5. Detect persuasive techniques used in propaganda, advertising, etc.
6. Distinguish between verifiable and unverifiable data.
7. Distinguish between relevant and irrelevant information.
8. Distinguish between essential and incidental information.
9. Assess the adequacy/ inadequacy of data.
10. Assess the appropriateness or inappropriateness of the data.
11. Determine the consistency/inconsistency of the data.
12. Determine whether facts support a generalization, conclusion or inference.
13. Assess the reliability of data sources.
14. Recognize limitations/qualifications in the data.
15. Distinguish between anecdotal evidence and objective data.

2.3. Reach and Apply Generalizations

• Step 1: Generalize.

1. Detect common elements in data.
2. Detect relationships in data which could lead to valid generalizations.
3. Detect limitations/deficiencies/gaps in data which could render generalizations valid.
4. Modify or reject hypotheses on the basis of evidence.
5. Formulate valid generalizations.
6. Recognize limitations/ probability factors in generalizations involving appropriate phenomena in a geographic context.
7. Recognize the tentative nature of generalizations involving phenomenon in a geographical context.
8. Discern factors (e.g., change) which may affect the validity of generalizations.

• Step 2: Draw conclusions.

1. Suggest tentative solutions to making tentative decisions in relation to questions/issues/problems.
2. Posing alternative solutions of decisions to problems.
3. Examine relative merits of alternative solutions or decisions to problems.
4. Propose suitable courses of action in relation to problems in a geographical context.
5. Propose appropriate techniques for reaching generalizations and finding solutions to questions/issues/problems of a geographical nature.
6. Predict probable consequences of a course of action/inaction.
7. Identify areas in need of further evidence or investigation.

• Step 3: Make value judgments.

1. Formulating reasoned value judgments.
2. Defend a value position.
3. Examine the implications of alternative value positions.
4. Suggest resolution of value conflicts.

2.4. Re-Evaluate

• Step 1: Re-evaluate the decision.

3. Examples of geographic questions

• While Piper, Slater and Nyerges provide a very detailed framework that a researcher should go through when posing and elaborating geographic questions, we return now to Slater (1982) for specific examples of the types of questions that geographers should be prepared to ask.

 
• The set of questions that Slater suggests should be in every geography inventory include the following:

• Where is it?
• Where does it occur?
• What is there?
• Why is it there?
• Why is it not elsewhere?
• What could be there?
• Could it be elsewhere?
• How much is there at that location?
• Why is it there rather than anywhere else?
• How far does it extend already?
• Why does it take a particular form or structure that it has?
• Is there regularity in its distribution?
• What is the nature of that regularity?
• Why should the spatial distributional pattern exhibit regularity?
• Where is it in relation to others of the same kind?
• What kind of distribution does it make?
• Is it found throughout the world?
• Is it universal?
• Where are its limits?
• What are the nature of those limits?
• Why do those limits constrain its distribution?
• What else is there spatially associated with that phenomenon?
• Do these things usually occur together in the same places?
• Why should they be spatially associated?
• Is it linked to other things?
• Has it always been there?
• When did it first emerge or become obvious?
• How has it changed spatially (through time)?
• What factors have influenced its spread?
• Why has it spread or diffused in this particular way?
• What geographic factors have constrained its spread?

4. Conclusion

• Slater (1982) argues that
• in order to answer some of these questions, geographical investigation requires that individuals practice their skills of observing, defining, classifying, analyzing, inferring, reasoning, integrating, and associating phenomena, and
• doing so will train both the teacher and the students in the use of geographic thinking and transfer their ability to handle the processes which, if followed, can help solve geographic problems in new environments and in new problem situations.
 
• Thus to both ask and answer geographic questions, students should be provided with
• a template of the concepts used in geography (e.g., location, distribution, pattern, shape, association, hierarchy, network, etc., see Golledge (1996)) and with
• an outline of the processes involved in thinking geographically (e.g. observing, defining, interpolating, spatially associating, and so on, see Nyerges (1991)).
 
• Together the template and the process assist not only in handling specific questions but also with linking questions that may not otherwise appear to be linked.

 
• The ultimate aim is to develop an ability to understand what and where things are and how and why they are where they are.

• The ability to state and answer geographic questions implies the existence of informed persons who
• can see meaning in the way things occur or are deliberately arranged in space,
• are capable of unpacking spatial relations between and among people, places, and environments,
• are capable of developing and using geographic skills and spatial abilities, and
• are capable of examining ecological, spatial and social perspectives to understand various life situations.

• GIS can help form, generate, and define geographic questions as well as help solve them.

 
• By enabling representations of data to be displayed and visualized, GIS helps with identification and definition (i.e., generating "what" and "where" questions) as well as solving them by using various display modes.

• Questions of association can be illustrated with overlay procedures.

• Questions of change can be generated from sequential "snapshots" of locations, patterns and distributions.

• A variety of analytical functions help solve "why" questions, and a selection of methods can be used to examine questions of methodology and process.

 
• In particular, the instructor should provide:
• examples of GIS functionalities and the questions they generate
• examples of GIS methods and the problems to which they apply
• examples of using GIS to change the naïve geographer into an expert
• examples of phrasing questions in different formats (verbal, graphic, pictorial, mathematical).

• Piper, K. (1976) Evaluation and the Social Sciences, National Committee on Social Science Teaching, Australian Government Planning Service, Canberra, ACT, Australia

• Slater (1982) Learning through Geography, Heineman Educational Books, Ltd. London, UK

• Timothy L. Nyerges (1991) Analytical Map Use. Cartography and GIS, 18

• Reginald G. Golledge (1995) Spatial Primitives. In Nyerges, T.L., Mark, D.M., Laurini, R., and Egenhofer, M.J. (1995) Cognitive aspects of human-computer interaction for Geographic Information Systems. Proceedings of the NATO Advanced Research Workshop , Palma de Mallorca, Spain, March 20-25, 1994. NATO ASI Series D: Behavioural and Social Sciences - Volume 83. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers.

• NCGE and National Geographic Society, Geography For Life. (1994)

1. How does GIS help define and solve geographic questions?

 
2. How are spatial abilities used to interpret and solve geographic questions/problems?

 
3. Define the stages involved in generating and solving geographic questions.

 
4. Slater differentiates between "the Big Question" and others. Explain the nature of geographic questions in each of these categories.

 
5. Given that one can develop an understanding of the cognitive processes required to comprehend the world in spatial terms, how can GIS be used to relate that understanding to Places and Regions?

Evaluation

Citation

by Timothy L. Nyerges and Reginald G. Golledge, NCGIA Core Curriculum in GIS, National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis, University of California, Santa Barbara, Unit 007, http://www.ncgia.ucsb.edu/giscc/units/u007/u007.html, posted November 12,  1997.