An 'expert approach' to enhance GIS training: the case study of land-use suitability mapping

R Balzarini (1) , P-A Davoine (1)

1 LIG - Laboratoire d'Informatique de Grenoble

To enhance the learning and teaching of geographic information systems in higher-education Earth sciences, we present results from a research which identified the strategies and concepts that underlie the suitability-mapping process. The analysis of common practices in mapping and GIS environmental projects led our attention to a particular kind of mapping: GIS-bases land-use suitability mapping, with multi criteria spatial analysis method. This method has a professionalizing nature since it supports the debate on territorial choices that involve decision making. Indeed, from a pedagogical point of view, this method, allows a progressive and comprehensive approach to the use of GIS. Based on the expert-novice continuum approach, this study focuses on two dimensions: a cognitive dimension, which explores and compares the way of thinking of experienced and novice users when solving site location problems with GIS; and on an instructional dimension, which identifies and integrate the expert methods in the resolution strategies of learners.

Keywords: suitability mapping; cognitive processes; expert-novice continuum; quantitative-based qualitative data analysis; educational scaffolding

Domains: Environmental Engineering

R Balzarini, P-A Davoine. An 'expert approach' to enhance GIS training: the case study of land-use suitability mapping. 2015. ⟨hal-01176630⟩