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Geospatial Thinking and Sense of Place: The Mediating Role of Creativity

Year: 2022

Type: article

Abstract: An individual’s sense of place has a motivational impetus on how s/he relates to the place. Thus, environmentally sustainable behaviors are deemed as products of a person’s sense of place. However, little is known about the extent to which geospatial thinking conditions a person’s sense of place. Accordingly, this study builds a theoretical model that examines the influence of geospatial thinking on a person’s sense of place. Further, it investigates the mediating role of creativity. A survey data from 1037 senior high school students in western China was utilized to test the theoretical model. The findings indicate that students’ geospatial thinking has a positive relationship with their creative behaviors and sense of place. Students’ creativity was found to facilitate their sense of place. Moreover, students’ creativity was discovered to mediate the relationship between geospatial thinking and sense of place. These results provide useful implication for the cultivation of students’ sense of place. In this regard, geography education has the critical role in improving students’ geospatial thinking skills to stimulate creative behaviors for a better sense of place.

Source: Sustainability

DOI: 10.3390/su15010523

Authors: Jianzhen Zhang, Ziyang Wang, Collins Opoku Antwi, Xiaoyu Liang, Jiahao Ge

Institution: Zhejiang Normal University

Language: English

Topic: Geography Education and Pedagogy

Subfield: Geography, Planning and Development

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Quality education

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $2,094