Essential competences for GIS learning in higher education: a synthesis of international curricular documents in the GIS&T domain.

GEOGRAPHIC information systems; HIGHER education; PROBLEM solving; EDUCATIONAL technology; CONTENT analysis; EDUCATION

Competence-oriented restructuring of curricular content for the study of geographic information system (GIS) in higher education has become a primary educational enterprise in Europe due to the Bologna Reform. Although there are different international curricular documents for outcome-based design of learning activities within the geographic information science and technology domain, it has not yet been clarified which competences should be considered essential components of a university-level course of study in GIS. Our content analysis of those curricular documents demonstrates that there are three dimensions of core competences foundational to the study of GIS in higher education, which are GIS knowledge and skills, spatial thinking, and problem-solving. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

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