Original article

doi: 10.1111/jcal.12166

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Understanding ‘change’ through spatial thinking

using Google Earth in secondary geography
X. Xiang* & Y. Liu†
*School of Geographic Sciences, East China Normal University, China
†School of Geography, Planning and Environmental Management, The University of Queensland, Australia

Abstract Understanding geographic changes has become an indispensable element in geography

education. Describing and analyzing changes in space require spatial thinking skills emphasized
in geography curriculum but often pose challenges for secondary school students. This school-
based research targets a specific strand of spatial thinking skills and investigates whether students
using geospatial technology, such as Google Earth, are able to develop their thinking about
spatio-temporal changes. An experiment was conducted in a Singaporean secondary school in
which skill development was framed within the formal geography curriculum. It compared the
effectiveness of two pedagogical approaches: learning with Google Earth versus traditional
instruction without the use of such a technology. Findings indicate that the use of Google Earth
significantly increased students’ ability to identify spatial and temporal changes and analyse these
changes. Qualitative data complemented the results by showing that Google Earth could offer
students more opportunities to observe and infer changes, thus facilitating their understanding
about the dynamic and the complex nature of changes.

Keywords geographic changes, Google Earth, secondary geography classroom, skill development, spatial
thinking, visualization.

Introduction learning spatial thinking skills related to changes is

perceived by students as difficult (Sawyer, Butler, &
The world we live is changing dynamically with the
Cartis, 2011). Geospatial technologies, an alternative to
advent of globalization, thereby students as the future
the traditional mapping methods, are regarded as tools
citizens should have the ability to deal with these
that play a positive role in fostering spatial thinking
changes in space (Wilson, Murphy, Trautmann, &
(Chun, 2008; Liu, Tan, & Xiang, 2012). Considering
Makinster, 2009). Besides a temporal approach to under-
the challenges students face in perceiving changes and
standing and explaining the concept of ‘change’, a spatial
the role of geospatial technologies in displaying spatial
perspective unique to the discipline of geography adds
changes, this research focuses on whether and how
insights into changes with regard to space (National
students’ thinking about changes in space could be
Research Council, 2006). Learning geography can equip
fostered with the use of geospatial technologies in the
students with skills to identify patterns and trends of
upper secondary geography classroom.
spatial changes, and analyse causes and impacts of the
changes, which help students better respond to and live
in the changing society (Xiang, 2014a). However,
Learning about spatial thinking and temporal changes

Spatial thinking is a powerful tool that informs decision-

Accepted: 31 October 2016 making in both the workforce and daily life and supports
Correspondence: Xi Xiang, School of Geographic Sciences, East China
Normal University, 500 Dongchuan Rd., Minhang District, Shanghai problem solving in scientific research (National Research
200241, China. Email: xxiang@geo.ecnu.edu.cn Council, 2006). It is defined as ‘a collection of cognitive

© 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd Journal of Computer Assisted Learning 1
2 X. Xiang & Y. Liu
skills’ that ‘consist of a constructive amalgam of three
elements: concept of space, tools of representations and
processes of reasoning’ (National Research Council,
2006, p.2). Geographers have listed essential spatial
concepts that constitute spatial thinking and reasoning
processes, for instance, distribution, distance, change,
hierarchy and overlay (Golledge, Marsh, & Battersby,
2008). Because geographic processes on the earth create
constant changes, utilizing the spatial concept of ‘change’
is essential to develop an understanding of how and why
our physical and human systems evolve (Rawding,
2013). Although the spatial skills to deal with change
should become one of the most important components
in spatial thinking, they are not clearly defined and
properly assessed, and compared with other strands
of spatial skills, has been least studied in prior
pedagogical research.
Nurturing spatial skills to recognize, track and analyze
change is crucial in secondary school geography and is
rightly highlighted in the geography syllabi in
Singapore (Singapore Examinations and Assessment
Board, 2014). It requires secondary school students to
‘develop knowledge with regard to various spatial and
temporal changes in physical and human environments’.
However, classroom practice indicates that students have
difficulty in acquiring and applying spatial skills of
changes (Bodzin, 2011; Xiang, 2014a). It has been
reported that students at this level find it hard to perceive
and visualize changes in space (Sawyer et al., 2011),
possibly because they are unable to link together what
had taken place to what is present. Besides, a majority
of them are confronted with problems to construct the
meaning of changes especially when explaining and
predicting impacts of such changes (Xiang, 2014b).
One reason for this is students’ lack of prior knowledge
of the operating norm of geographical changes
(Rawding, 2013). Another reason lies in the methodo-
logical limitation in representing changes. As the geo-
graphical changes usually occur within the enormous
range of temporal and spatial scales that are beyond
our daily life experience, representing these changes
graphically is a significant cartographic challenge
(Harrower, 2002).
Interacting with geospatial technologies
It is anticipated that there is a connection between the
development of spatial thinking and interacting with
geospatial technologies (Schultz, Kerski, & Patterson,
2008; Uttal, 2000). Geospatial technologies enable a
large quantity of geographic data to be displayed, manip-
ulated, analysed and synthesized in novel ways (Bodzin,
2011; National Research Council, 2006). They can
provide students with the opportunity to visualize and
understand geographic changes, thus developing their
conceptual spatial–temporal skills (Bodzin and Fu,
2014; Schultz et al., 2008). Google Earth is one of such
technologies that is adopted by geography teachers in
classroom given its ease of implementation, strong
visualization ability and entertainment components
(Patterson, 2007). It has gained popularity as a learning
tool for students to explore geographic changes within
topics such as coasts (Xiang, 2014a) and urban land uses
(Bodzin, 2011).
Based on modern learning theories, working with
computers provides students the opportunity to learn
mind-skills and facilitate learning processes in a way that
other tools may not be able to achieve (Jonassen,
Howland, Marra, & Crismond, 2008). In particular,
advantages of Google Earth over traditional teaching
means have been identified based on existing literature
regarding the development of students’ spatial skills
related to ‘change’ (Bodzin & Cirucci, 2009; Bodzin &
Fu, 2014). Balley, Whitmeyer, and De Paor (2012)
suggested that utilizing the digital globe allows students
to observe the surface processes and their geological
structure at various scales. Similarly, Wilson et al.
(2009) reported the case where students use the digital
globe to obtain clearer and more concrete views of the
changing geographic features. Besides, using functional-
ities inherent to Google Earth such as animated maps,
placemarks and old photos can take students back in time
and provide an overview of how places and features have
changed (Lerman & Hicks, 2010; Patterson, 2007). In
addition, students can explore different sets of data layers
added to Google Earth to identify the associations in
them and investigate the effects of changes (Bodzin &
Fu, 2014). Nevertheless, it is yet to understand what
types of spatial changes students can describe and ana-
lyse through engaging with Google Earth and how this
type of technology may facilitate the learning process
of spatial thinking.
Besides, many studies have suggested that incorporat-
ing Google Earth into classroom can help promote
spatial thinking from the perspective of curriculum
design and implementation (Bodzin & Cirucci, 2009;
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Understanding ‘change’ using Google Earth 3

Guertin & Neville, 2010; Kulo & Bodzin, 2011;
Patterson, 2007). However, empirical evidence that
verifies the learning effects of using Google Earth in
secondary education is scarce, especially when it is
concerned with specific strands of spatial thinking skills
(Baker et al., 2015; Demirci, Karaburun, & Kılar,
2013; Favier & van der Schee, 2014). Existing research
has justified the positive effect of utilizing Google Earth
on developing two strands of spatial skills, spatial
relational thinking (Clagett, 2009) and spatial visualiza-
tion skills (Giorgis, 2015), but it is unknown whether
and how students’ thinking about space and time can
be affected by the use of Google Earth. To fill these
research gaps, the current study attempts to investigate
the following two research questions.
RQ1 Can the use of Google Earth help improve students’
spatial thinking skills to describe and analyse changes in
space?
RQ2 What types of spatial changes can students describe
and analyse through engaging with Google Earth?
Methods
To answer the two research questions, this study adapts a
quasi-experimental design to investigate the relationship
between geospatial technology and students’ spatial
thinking. Additional qualitative data were collected as a
supportive component to offer more in-depth insights
into how students benefited from utilizing such a tech-
nology during the intervention.
Participants
Eighty secondary school students from two classes in
one neighbourhood secondary school in Singapore
formed the research sample composed of 33 males
(41.3%) and 47 females (58.7%). Around 72% were
Chinese, Malay, Indian and other cultural groups made
up the rest of the sample. This is close to the relative pro-
portions of the ethnic groups at the national level. All the
participants were in Secondary 3 (equating to Grade 9 in
the USA) with their average age being 14.8. Both classes
were placed in the express stream and took geography
courses as an elective. Forty-five per cent of the students
had some prior experience in using geospatial technolo-
gies in the geography classroom.
Treatment
The study compared the effectiveness of two different
learning approaches – learning with Google Earth versus
a traditional instruction – through a quasi-experimental
design. The experimental group used a pre-designed
learning package. Each student worked on a series of
worksheets in front of their computers in the lab, submit-
ted results and obtained feedback at the beginning of the
next session. The control group referred to geography
textbooks, received the geography teacher’s instruction
and completed similar worksheets. This experiment
employed two rationales to guide the development of
learning activities that hone students’ spatial thinking
skills.
First, three types of spatial skills were set up as learn-
ing goals of this intervention, including identifying
changes, explaining changes and predicting the impacts
of these changes. Nurturing these spatial skills was
framed into learning of the Coasts within the formal
geography curriculum. Both the experimental group
and the control group conducted the study of the chapter
of coasts within one introductory lesson and five sessions
of 60 min, each within a two-semester time frame
(Table 1). Second, three components, including spatial
thinking skills, content knowledge and spatial visualiza-
tions, were combined into geography lessons used in the
intervention. Table 2 presents an example to illustrate
how the sessions were designed to engage students in
the acquisition and application of the three spatial skills

Table 1. Schedule of Intervention

Session Timeline Module Learning outcome Key issues to explore

1 April Coasts Coast agents (waves) Where to surf?

2 May Coastal erosional features White Cliffs in England
3 June Coastal changes Coastal erosion at Holderness Coast
4 July Coastal depositional features How has Spurn Head come about?
5 July Coastal management Management at Holderness Coast

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4 X. Xiang & Y. Liu

Table 2. Lesson Plan Integrating with Google Earth (Session 3: Coast Erosion)

Spatial Content
skill knowledge Geospatial technology

Function Spatial representations and analysis tools

Identify Describe the placemark

changes changes
occurring along
Holderness Coasts

Coastal cliffs along Holderness

Bird’s eye view
Historical imagery

2006 2008 2012

Coastal changes at Holderness from 2006–2012
Explain Analyse the rapid Overlay Zoom
changes changes along this
coastline

Geomorphology Fetch of waves

Factors contributing to the rapid erosion
Predict Predict the Ruler Placemark
impacts potential
of impacts of coastal
changes changes on
people’s
life in Mappleton
Village nearby

Measuring the rate of cliff retreat at Holderness

of ‘changes’ within the context of coasts with different
functions, tools and representations in Google Earth.
Implementation
Before discussing how participants experienced the
intervention, the threats to validity of findings emerging
from this experiment were considered. First, the treat-
ment conditions were properly manipulated to control
the confounding variables that may affect the measured
learning outcomes in spatial thinking. Specifically,
students in both groups studied the same strands of
spatial skills within the same geographic contexts and
were taught by the same geography teacher. The learning
practices in the two classrooms merely differed in the
way of interacting with spatial representations as a result
of the intervention. With the Google Earth technology,
the experimental group was able to access the spatial rep-
resentations in a non-sequential manner, manipulate with
add-on overlays and ‘see through’ the superimposed
layer into the base layer, while the control group ob-
served images in a sequence presented by the geography
teacher and mentally overlaid maps for interpretation of
spatial changes (Table 3).
Besides, the experimental group took a warm-up
session one week before the intervention in which they

© 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

Understanding ‘change’ using Google Earth
Table 3. Comparison of Treatments for Both Groups (Session 3: Coast Erosion)
Control group
Learning task Compare the two maps showing the geology of Holderness Coast and disappearing towns along
Holderness since Roman Times to explain coastal erosion in this area.
Interaction with spatial Mentally overlay maps
representations
explored their own school in Google Earth to become
accustomed to the new learning environment. The main
purpose of the warm-up session was an attempt to
avoid ‘Hawthorne effects’ (Gay, Mills, & Airasian,
2011), which students’ engagement and interest
observed in this intervention was not elevated by
simply being treated ‘special’ for interacting with
Google Earth images.
To understand more about the nature of the interven-
tion, this study used field notes and worksheets as tools
to gather and record the spontaneity of the students’
reactions to the pre-designed learning package. The
intervention began with students’ observation on various
dynamically changing coastal landforms along
Holderness coastlines with satellite imagery and aerial
photographs, or looking from a bird’s eye view in Google
Earth. It appeared that the overhead viewpoint aroused
students’ curiosity. Then, students utilized the historical
imagery function to explore changes over a couple of
decades at various sites of Holderness Coasts. They
showed a great interest in switching back and forth on
the timeline that connects a sequence of ‘before’ and
‘after’ images. In the following learning sessions,
students looked at the added Google KML data layers
© 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
5
Experimental group
Manipulate with two overlays and ‘see
through’ the superimposed layer into
the base layer
showing, for instance, local geology and wave condi-
tions at different zooms to investigate the causes of the
severe coastal erosion along the Holderness. Based on
answers in the worksheets, most of them drew
correlations among Google Earth layers and were able
to associate the rapid coastal changes with some
geographic factors in the local context. Only a few of
them successfully estimated the potential damage of the
coastal erosion on the neighbourhood areas with the
measurement tool according to their answers to the
worksheet questions.
Measurement
Alternative assessment methods have been incorporated
to capture the development in spatial thinking because
traditional objective methods such as multiple choices
have limitations in detecting thinking processes. Essay
questions are particularly useful in assessing how
students use higher level thinking processes and demon-
strate the integration of multiple spatial skills (Nitko &
Brookhart, 2011). Therefore, a test item was crafted to
measure students’ ability to identify and comprehend
changes over time and transfer spatio-temporal skills to
6 X. Xiang & Y. Liu

novel contexts (Appendix). This item was adapted from
the one used in previous Singapore ‘O’-level examina-
tions and assumed to have relatively high validity and
reliability. All the participants answered this essay
question in the pretest and post-test. In addition, a five-
question survey was designed to gain more insights into
how Google Earth facilitates acquisition of skills to
describe and analyse changes of places. This survey
was delivered to the experimental group as a part of their
homework at the end of the coast chapter.
Data analysis
All students’ responses to the aforementioned test item
were reviewed to examine the extent to which they could
employ spatial thinking skills relevant to changes. The
coding process was divided into two steps to quantify
the learning outcomes. First, the number of spatial
changes each student identified was counted. Second,
the occurrence of spatial vocabulary used by students to
specify changes was recorded following a rubric created
to categorize concept usage based on the conceptual
framework of geospatial thinking (Golledge, et al.,
2008).
To begin with, three spatial concepts, ‘size’, ‘shape’
and ‘area’, were grouped together as spatial property,
because they are useful to display properties of
geographic features in space. The second group, spatial
representation, includes three concepts, ‘contour’,
‘relief’ and ‘gradient’, which represent characteristics of
physical landforms. Multiple spatial concepts, such as
‘connection’, ‘nearby’, ‘relative direction’, ‘relative
distance’ and ‘pattern’, are often applied to show how
geographic features are in relation to others in space;
hence, forming the third group. ‘Sequence’, ‘movement’
and ‘spread’ are spatial and temporal concepts that
involve a time dimension and display the dynamic nature
of geographic features, therefore, the group they formed
was labelled as spatial dynamics. The last two concepts
(‘association’ and ‘impact’) support students’ spatial
reasoning and thereby were put in the spatial inference
group (Table 4).

Table 4. Rubrics and Coding Book for Scoring Students’ Responses to the Test Item

Type Spatial concept Example of student response

Spatial property Size ‘The mountains became bigger.’

Spatial representation
Spatial relations
Spatial dynamics
Spatial inference
‘The island has increased in size after the eruption.’
Shape ‘The mountain got wider and longer’.
‘Some parts of the coastline looked more irregular’.
Area ‘The mountain has occupied more surface area of the island’.
‘Most of the island (about 3/4) has been covered by lava’.
Contour ‘The mountain decreases in height and deepens downs
to 600 m at the top now’.
Relief ‘A crater appeared on the top of the mountain after the eruption’.
Gradient ‘The slope of mountain becomes more gentle or less steep
with ash and lava’.
Nearby ‘The buildings near the volcanic crater were wiped out’.
Relative direction ‘The fishing port in the north of the island disappeared’.
Connection ‘The road leading to the fishing port was broken and separated
from the road network’.
Sequence ‘Originally, there are two ports and roads. After the eruption,
one of the sea ports is gone and roads are gone’.
Movement ‘The slope of the mountain was pushed further, and the coastline
extended seaward’.
Association ‘The perimeter of the island has been expanded as a result of
solidification of volcanic ashes and lava’.
‘The transportation facilities were broken because they were
melted away by the volcanic lava and ashes’.
Impact ‘The roads were destroyed partially, making transportation to
the other parts of the island impossible’.
‘People living nearer towards the farmland and mountain got more
affected by the vocalnic eruption and had to move to other places
very soon, as their settlements were destroyed’.

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Understanding ‘change’ using Google Earth 7

While the subjectivity of results can be unavoidable
once essay questions were used in the test, systematic
coding procedures were followed to make the raters’
judgments as accurate as possible (Liu, Bui, Chang, &
Lossman, 2010). First, a coding rubric was crafted to
ensure that the coding was conducted in a consistent
way. Second, two markers were involved in the coding
work, and they rated the essay question separately
following the coding rubric. The inter-rater reliability
coefficient was 0.7, which was high based on existing
benchmark (Walford, Tucker, & Viswanathan, 2010).
Third, the answers of essay questions were coded blind
to all the students’ demographic characteristics, includ-
ing name, gender and age.
As the coding was based on counting the number of
changes identified and the occurrences of five groups of
spatial concepts utilized, students acquired a set of six
scores in both the pretest and the post-test. The percent-
age of correctness students achieved for each group of
spatial concepts in the pretest was calculated in order to
judge the level of difficulty of these concepts. For the rea-
son that the normality of the data was checked to be
non-normally distributed, the non-parametric tests were
used to analyse the paired data. In particular, this study
adopted Mann–Whitney U-test to determine whether
there was significant difference between the means of
the pretest scores and the post-test scores in the two
unrelated groups.
The student feedback in the survey was coded by the
same markers and analysed to discover how students ac-
quired and applied spatial and temporal skills with the
support of Google Earth. Based on the desired learning
goals of the intervention, the major student feedback
comments were grouped into four categories: identifying
and describing changes, analyzing changes and
predicting their impacts. Within the four categories, the
specific functionalities inherent to Google Earth that stu-
dents reported to assist learning of spatial and temporal
skills were identified (Table 5).
Findings
Data from all participants indicated that students demon-
strated substantial use of spatial concepts to specify

Table 5. Coding Book for Scoring Students’ Feedback on Learning Experience with Google Earth

Spatial skills The role of Google Earth on developing spatial skills

Identifying changes ‘It is not easy to record how the coasts have changed. But with the function of
historical imagery, I can get the rough sketch of how the coast used to look
like in the early years, how much land has been eroded, how it looks like now’.
‘A timeline is put into Google Earth for viewers to observe and study coastal
drawings. So that we are able to compare the coasts before and after deposited’.
‘Dragging the slide bar in a timeline seems like “simulating” the coastal processes’.
Describing changes ‘I can also observe the coastal features from above as if I was in a helicopter,
a point of view that I have not experienced before’.
‘It (Google Earth) gives me a more accurate visual idea of what coastal changes
look like in real life. The bird’s eye view allowed me to visualize the spit is rapidly
elongated and becomes more curved over time’.
Analyzing changes ‘By providing detailed descriptions of the coasts with supporting photos as well
as a more accurate scale, Google Earth helped me better analyze causes for the
coastal changes’.
‘Google Earth shows the actual scene of the eroded areas of the coast so that I can
study closely at the changes created by erosion and deposition. By adjusting the
view, I began to realize the erosion has something to do with the nature of rocks,
also the long-fetch waves coming from very cold sea’.
Predicting changes ‘We don’t know how fast the coastal change may be. But when we use Google
Earth, we can use the historical imagery to show the coastal erosion, utilize the
ruler to measure the distance the cliffs has retreated, and then estimate the rate
of erosion and predict its impacts on neighbourhood areas’.
‘By using the ruler and historical imagery in Google Earth, I can predict when the
impacts of coastal changes would reach people in distance, for example when the
crops nearby would be swallowed up by the sea. That way, I can identify the land
area near the coastline that is suitable for people’s living, and warn people living
near the top of the cliffs when to move’.

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8 X. Xiang & Y. Liu

changes taking place in a geographic context. A majority Table 7. Average Number of Spatial Concepts Used by Students to
Specify Spatial Changes (N = 80)
of students could identify changes taking place in space
(63.8%) and analyse these changes in relation to their Average number of
spatial relations (62.5%). However, describing and Spatial concept Group spatial concepts used
analyzing changes remain difficult for students based Pretest Post-test
on the pretest scores. Only 25% were able to recognize
changes in spatial property, 30% of them were able to Change Control 3.62 4.27
Experimental 3.78 5.02
represent changes, 33.8% could reason about
Property Control 0.20 0.38
movement-related changes and 23.8% could make asso- Experimental 0.33 0.77
ciations with changes (Table 6). Representation Control 0.30 0.50
Experimental 0.30 0.70
Relations Control 1.80 2.70
RQ1: Impact of Google Earth on students’ spatial Experimental 1.00 2.80
skills to describe and analyse changes Dynamics Control 0.48 0.88
Experimental 0.50 0.80
Considering the learning issues students confronted, Inference Control 0.28 0.35
Experimental 0.38 0.75
interventional sessions were implemented to improve
their spatial thinking skills of changes. Results docu-
mented that students from both groups did better to spatial concepts (‘size’, ‘shape’ and ‘area’) more
describe and analyse spatial changes in the post-test than frequently than the control group.
in the pretest (Table 7). But independent samples test The other strand of spatial skill, representing changes
showed that the experimental group outperformed the with spatial concepts such as ‘relief’, ‘contour’ and
control group in three skill areas: identifying changes, ‘gradient’, was not significantly improved (z = 1.413,
describing changes in property and associating with p = 0.158). The experimental group gave more accurate
changes. Table 8 presents findings under two categories: descriptions of the physical landscapes through interpre-
describing changes and analyzing changes. tation of contour lines in the post-test than in the pretest,
As for the category of ‘describing changes’, two but both groups improved at a similar range without
strands of spatial skills responded to the use of Google achieving a significant difference.
Earth technology. First, students in the experimental Only one strand of spatial skill, associating with
group made greater improvements in identifying changes changes, was found to develop within the category of
than the control group (z = 3.091, p = 0.002). They ‘analyzing changes’. Students in the experimental group
noticed more changes in the post-test than their counter- used spatial inference concepts, ‘association’ and
parts with regard to the size and the morphology of the ‘impact’, twice as often in the post-test as they did in
mountain and the island. Second, the use of Google Earth the pretest. Besides, improvement in making inference
supported students to better describe changes in spatial with the two concepts was significantly different
properties of geographic features. The significant between groups (z = 2.617, p = 0.009). To be specific,
difference between groups (z = 2.422, p = 0.015) the experimental group provided more detailed and
showed that the experimental group applied the three reasonable explanations for changes, as some of them
attributed the increase in size of the island after the volca-
nic eruption to the cooling or solidified volcanic lava.
Table 6. Percentage of Students that Used Spatial Concepts: Pre- Moreover, students using Google Earth packages were
test Scores (N = 80)
more willing to make predictions of changes in the
Category Spatial concept Percentage (%) post-test, and they listed potential damages of volcano
eruption to different human activities on the island, such
Describing changes Change 63.8
as fishing, transportation, farming and settlements.
Property 25.0
Representation 30.0 No significant difference was found between the
Analyzing changes Relations 62.5 experimental group and the control group in improve-
Dynamics 33.8 ment in applying three spatio-temporal concepts (‘move-
Inference 23.8
ment’, ‘sequence’ and ‘spread’) to analyse the dynamic

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Understanding ‘change’ using Google Earth
Table 8. Inferential Statistics for Concept Usage to Specify Spatial Changes: Frequency (N = 80)
Category Spatial skills
Describing changes Identifying change
Describing changes in property
Representing changes
Analyzing changes Analyzing changes in relations
Reasoning about dynamics
Associating with changes
p* < 0.05;
p** < 0.01
character of geographic features in space (z = 1.432,
p = 0.152). In particular, the ‘movement’ concept was
least adopted by students, with a possible reason that they
noticed ‘some parts of the coastlines have pushed back’
but failed to visualize the underlying geological processes.
With regard to the spatial relations concepts, our data
reveal a pattern that needs further exploration. The signif-
icant difference in the pretest scores indicated students in
the experimental group were weaker at analyzing
changes with regard to spatial relations than the control
group (z = 2.109, p = 0.035), while the post-test scores
showed there was no significant difference between
groups after the intervention (z = 0.468, p = 0.64). A
comparison of pretest and post-test scores indicated that
Google Earth possibly played a role in narrowing the
learning gap between the two groups with respect to
applying spatial relations skills.
RQ2: The type of spatial changes that Google Earth
enables students to describe and analyse
The qualitative data collected from the students through
the post intervention survey helps understand the quantita-
tive results presented earlier. Student feedback in the
survey revealed roles that Google Earth has played to
facilitate different spatial and temporal skills. These are
elaborated in the succeeding paragraphs and supported
by the major students’ feedback comments (Table 5).
First, the manipulation of the sequenced satellite
images of many locations in Google Earth engaged
students in active thinking and comparison to identify
changes in space. Specifically, students highlighted the
role of the timeline in Google Earth on retrieving the date
information and visualizing the outcome of changes.
Second, the bird’s eye view in Google Earth enabled
students to observe how spatial properties of geographic
features have altered more easily and clearly than
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9
Pretest Improvement in post-test
z= 0.205, p = 0.838 z= 3.091, p** = 0.002
z= 1.076, p = 0.282 z= 2.422, p* = 0.015
z= 0.408, p = 0.683 z= 1.413, p = 0.158
z= 2.109, p* = 0.035 z= 1.672, p = 0.095
z= 0.053, p = 0.957 z= 1.432, p = 0.152
z= 0.045, p = 0.964 z= 2.617, p** = 0.009
ground-level observations. Third, the scaling ability
allowed students to expand the scope beyond the study
site and analyse multiple causes of changes in a broader
context where changes occur, leading to an enhanced
understanding of the geographic processes. In addition,
a combination of functions and tools, such as historical
imagery, placemarks and ruler, supported students to
do more advanced analysis of changes and to comple-
ment their comprehension of impacts of these changes.
Further interpretation of the qualitative data indicated
that the increased level of interactivity with spatial im-
ages provided by Google Earth could stimulate spatial
and temporal thinking by allowing students to better
visualize the spatial contexts in which geographic
phenomena take place. This type of technology offers a
dynamic learning environment that encourages students
to take an active role in displaying and analyzing spatial
information, thus reinforcing their spatial primitives and
facilitating higher ordering thinking.
Discussion
A synthesis of the quantitative and qualitative data
answers the central research question ‘whether and how
using geospatial technologies could help students to
describe and analyse spatial changes’. Results indicated
that students in the experiment group were able to iden-
tify more spatial and temporal changes than the control
group (p = 0.002). The positive results exemplify the ef-
fectiveness of geospatial technologies on the develop-
ment of spatial concepts and skills related to changes
(Bodzin & Cirucci, 2009; Morrison, 2000), which is
often investigated by a qualitative research method rather
than a robust experimental design. As students’ feedback
comments indicated, such an improvement was possibly
a result of using the historical imagery function in
Google Earth. This function has an interactive component,
10
a timeline that links the sequenced satellite images and
makes the spatial stimulus animated so that student users
can have more control over the spatial representations
(Chun, 2008) and set the learning at their own pace.
Rather than merely passive observers, users could take
a more active role in displaying spatial information with
the animated maps (Harrower, 2002) and learn to better
discern changes in patterns and trends than with static
media (Patton & Cammack, 1996), thus facilitating their
skill development (Xiang, 2014b). It is therefore recom-
mended that besides the static maps that are often used in
classrooms, geography teachers should consider incor-
porating animated images and maps retrieved from or
added to Google Earth to illustrate temporal dynamics
and model geographic processes.
This study explored the impact of using tools like
Google Earth on how students specified spatial
changes, an untouched topic in previous research. It
has been found that the two spatial concepts, ‘shape’
and ‘size’, are key elements that support students’
perception and interpretation of changes (Xiang, 2014b),
while this study discovered that only 20% of students suc-
cessfully applied these spatial primitives to specify
changes in patterns. This is contrary to the traditional
belief that secondary school students could make use
of spatial primitives well for problem solving. More
meaningful, empirical evidence from this research
showed that the use of Google Earth significantly
increased students’ ability to apply the ‘shape’ and
‘size’ spatial concepts (p = 0.015). Findings from this
research imply that reinforcing the spatial primitives
(e.g., shape, size) under the support of appropriate
geospatial technologies would be an effective peda-
gogical strategy for students to derive more complex
spatial skills (e.g., change).
The qualitative data collated from students help
explain how Google Earth enabled students to better
perceive changes. Prior research suggested that students
are unfamiliar with the top-down perspective (Wiegand,
1993), meaning they are ‘egocentric’ and tend to adopt
the view that they can understand. Working with satellite
images through using the function of bird’s eye view in
Google Earth ‘forced’ students to adopt a ‘decentric’
viewpoint that is different from their own and would
not be possible from the ground-level perspective
presented in commonly used spatial stimulus (Palmer,
2013; Wilson et al., 2009). The research findings high-
light the benefit of Google Earth in combining both the
X. Xiang & Y. Liu
top-down and ground-level perspectives for better
visualization and perception of geographic changes.
The effect of using Google Earth on students’ spatial
reasoning skills was also investigated. It is evident that
analyzing changes is challenging for students; less than
25% of them were capable of associating with changes
based on the pretest scores. But the significant differ-
ence between groups documented in this study showed
that students who participated in learning activities inte-
grated with Google Earth did enhance their ability to
explain changes and predict their potential
consequences (p = 0.009). This finding is of great
importance for secondary geography education because
it provides evidence that a new range of spatial skills
would be enhanced by the use of geospatial technolo-
gies that were previously regarded as beyond the capac-
ity of students of this age (Palladino & Goodchild,
1993; Schmeinck & Lidstone, 2014; Xiang, 2014b).
The result also consolidates the idea put forward by
some authors that interacting with geospatial technolo-
gies can develop effectively higher order thinking and
understanding particularly from analysis to evaluation
(Baker & White, 2003; Favier & van der Schee,
2014; Liu et al., 2010; West, 2003). This implies that
learning activities integrated with geospatial technolo-
gies should not only emphasize interpretation of spatial
changes but also encourage students’ critical thinking
about the processes and effects accompanied with these
changes.
The qualitative data made attempts to elaborate on
how the use of Google Earth better engaged students in
learning spatial reasoning skills. It is probable that the
strong scaling ability in Google Earth offers students
more opportunities to drill down into geospatial data
from local to global scales (Balley et al., 2012) and
visualize changes of the desired areas in a broader
context (Rhys, 1972). Therefore, students could think
about how these changes are interrelated with geographic
factors at various scales (Ratinen & Keinonen, 2011),
generate new insights about the changing geographic
phenomenon (Kulo & Bodzin, 2011) and grasp the
significance of changes in areas (Bodzin & Cirucci,
2009). The finding is consistent with the theory claiming
that computers as a tool can help visualize the ideas in the
mind and thus facilitates higher level understanding and
deep learning (Underwood & Underwood, 1990). Based
on the finding, it is suggested that proper guidance be
provided for students to think in depth about the satellite
© 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
Understanding ‘change’ using Google Earth
images inherent to Google Earth, for example, how to
analyze the spatial contexts of places represented on
these images to be aware of the complexity of places that
causes geographic changes.
It is worth noticing that the two strands of spatial skills,
representing space and reasoning about dynamics, were
not significantly improved (p = 0.158, p = 0.152). One
explanation is that these spatial skills were not the focus
of this intervention and thus less practiced. The other rea-
son is some spatial concepts, such as ‘contour’, ‘gradient’
and ‘spread’, are probably too complicated for students at
the age period to master (Battersby, Golledge, & Marsh,
2006), and it would be better to lean on these spatial con-
cepts at higher grades. For the strand of spatial relations
skills, although no significant difference in improvement
was found (p = 0.095), a comparison of pretest and post-
test scores indicates that students who found it difficult to
recognize changes in spatial relations were more likely to
take advantage of using Google Earth than those with a
greater ability to do so. This is in line with previous re-
search that the low ability students gain particular benefit
from the virtual reality learning environments (Lee &
Wong, 2014). The reason possibly lies in the lower ability
students who may have difficulty in constructing a mental
visualization (Huk, 2006; Mayer 2001), while the presen-
tation of dynamic visualizations in Google Earth helps
them build their visual representation of the spatial layout
of geographic features (Patterson, 2007), resulting in an
easier identification of changes in spatial relations. This
finding leads to the hypothesis that new technologies,
combined with appropriate instructional design, play a
positive role in closing the achievement gap between
students with different entry abilities in spatial thinking.
This is a topic that needs further investigation.
Conclusion
This classroom-based research targets a strand of spatial
skills that describes and analyses spatial changes and
frames the skill development within the formal school
curriculum based on the geography syllabus used in
Singapore’s secondary school system. Results justify
the positive learning effect of Google Earth, a type of
geospatial technology, on spatial and temporal thinking
of secondary school students. It is also found that Google
Earth enhances spatial thinking by altering the
approaches in which students visualize and analyze
spatial information. This research contributes to the
© 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
11
existing corpus of knowledge in three aspects. First,
having identified that visualizing and reasoning about
spatial changes poses a challenge for secondary school
students, this study utilized Google Earth as a learning
tool in an attempt to overcome the learning difficulty. It
measured whether different types of sub-skills, from spa-
tial primitives to higher order thinking, evolve over time
after students’ using the geospatial technology-infused
curriculum. Findings help develop a holistic understand-
ing of students’ thinking of temporal changes as well as
the potential of geospatial technologies for facilitating
specific spatial skills and higher order thinking in schools
by providing concrete evidence.
Second, the current study discovered ways Google
Earth works to leverage on students’ capacity to think
about spatial changes in geography classroom. This will
enhance our knowledge on the advantages of using
geospatial technologies on stimulating spatial thinking
over traditional instructional methods and provide
insights into how spatial thinking can be effectively
learned with such technologies, consequently encourag-
ing more process-oriented research in the future by
examining the learning process itself.
Third, this study highlights three factors that influence
the learning effects of geospatial technologies. Students’
prior knowledge and skills in spatial thinking need to be
diagnosed before designing school interventions,
because their entry ability sets the starting point for the
geospatial technology-infused curriculum and affects
the extent they benefit from this type of instruction. In
addition, spatial concepts and thinking skills should be
taught to students in an order to progress from primitive
spatial ideas toward building more sophisticated
geospatial understandings and reasoning skills. Besides,
the spatial stimulus linked to the geospatial technologies
have to be cognitively appropriate for students to inter-
pret and understand at their age period, for instance,
presenting visualizations that display geographic features
from multiple perspectives and at various spatial scales
for observation and spatial analysis.
Based on the empirical evidence from the current
study, teachers should be encouraged to incorporate
geospatial technologies as a supplement to traditional
classroom teaching in order to achieve certain aspects
of the learning outcomes that would not be easily
achieved by means of traditional exposition. In addition,
our findings support the policy to include geospatial
technologies as an integral part of school curriculum
12
for effective teaching and learning of spatial thinking.
They also help us to develop pedagogical strategies that
improve students’ learning experiences within the
technology-based learning environment.
Study limitations
This study was conducted in one secondary school with a
relatively small sample size; therefore, interpretation of
the findings should be cautious. Further research needs
to be replicated with larger samples and in wider con-
texts, for example, testing students from diverse types
of secondary schools, using a couple of geo-visualization
tools, and framing the skill development in different
content knowledge. In the current study, only one type
of assessment method, namely, essay questions, was
used to evaluate students’ learning progress in such
skills. Future research should incorporate multiple types
of methods to measure nuances in development of spatial
thinking skills that would not be captured by one type. In
all, we would like to encourage more geography teachers
and other practitioners to adopt a new way of working
and supplement their teaching of spatio-temporal
changes and other strands of spatial skills by integrating
geospatial technologies into their classrooms. It is only
through this way we can truly engage our students who
are digital natives of the 21st century.
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