RCN: Transformative Research in Geography Education

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This project will build a research coordination network (RCN) that enables transformative research in geography education, defined as pioneering research activities with strong potential to inform broad-scale improvements in U.S. geography education. The National Center for Research in Geography Education will coordinate this research network. The project will strengthen geography education research processes by creating the networks, opportunities for interdisciplinary conversations, and publicly-available datasets and scientific resources that ultimately result in sustainable lines of research. Through a collaborative process involving dozens of universities and major geography organizations, the project will create a self-sustaining RCN whose members pursue multiple active lines of research that engender evidence-based practices, new knowledge and theory, more robust curricula, better standards and assessments, and expanded access to high-quality teacher training programs in geography. In practical terms, the RCN will work to raise the profile of geography education as a research field. Doing so will help the participating universities recruit more diverse cohorts of graduate students, increase faculty research productivity, and promote the use of research to improve the quality of geography teaching and learning in local communities. The need for transformative research in geography education was given in-depth consideration by The Road Map for 21st Century Geography Education project funded by NSF from 2011-2013. The Road Map Project, which built on many prior efforts to assess the state of research in geography education, issued a landmark study and research agenda in 2013. The Road Map report considers many substantive issues as to what research topics and questions are most critical for ensuring long-term progress and improvements in student achievement. It also draws attention to the important methodological issue of how geography education research that aspires to be transformative should be designed. The Road Map Project's research agenda offers a set of recommendations for building research capacity and capability in geography education. It emphasizes scientific approaches to research planning and design as a strategy for moving beyond the descriptive, singular and anecdotal studies that at present characterize the geography education literature. Enacting this vision will require considerable coordination, collaboration and information sharing among geographers and educational researchers in other disciplines. This RCN project will, for the first time, provide the infrastructure needed to carry out this work.