The Whatever Factor: Geographic Literacy of Teachers

Abstract

This study helps document the geographic illiteracy of a sample of undergraduate and graduate students in teacher education at a major southeastern university. What makes this study unique is that the samples were tested using the National Council for Geographic Education’s elementary and secondary forms of a test which measured map skills plus understandings of physical and cultural geography. In the sample of 268, students in elementary education courses outperformed secondary education students. Further, inspection of the data suggests that only 71.6% of the items were answered correctly, this group of present and prospective teachers were woefully inadequate in geographic knowledge.