Cognitive Maps Of The World: A Case Study In Grades Four Through Eight In Watauga County, North Carolina

Cognitive maps are concerned with the contents, locations, and relationships of places in a geographic environment. The importance of studying students' cognitive maps lies in the current concern over geographic education, in the nature of geography, and in the understanding of schema theory. This study is an attempt to analyze students' cognitive maps of the world as their cognitive maps are represented on sketch maps. The sketch maps were obtained from students between the 4th and 8th grades at two schools in Watauga County, North Carolina. The author provided a relatively objective system to retrieve, store, and analyze data from the sketch maps.