Does the use of GIS in geographical education yield better learning outcomes? Evidence from a quasi-experimental study on air pollution teaching

The use of GIS to enhance student learning in geographical education has garnered broad recognition. Notwithstanding this, the diffusion of GIS technology into class teaching has been slow. This study endeavored to examine the effects of GIS usage in air pollution teaching on learning outcomes of secondary school students. To this end, two parallel classes in the same academic year were chosen as the control and experimental groups. A quasi-experimental research design was used to compare the learning outcomes of the experimental group who were exposed to the use of GIS in air pollution teaching with those of the control group who were not. The results show that GIS-based teaching does lead to improvement in students' learning outcomes, although not uniformly. More specifically, GIS-based teaching enhances high-order cognitive abilities related to application and analysis, highlighting the effectiveness of GIS as a tool in educational settings, especially for developing advanced cognitive abilities.