RCN: Transformative Research in Geography Education

该项目将建立一个研究协调网络(RCN)，以实现地理教育中的变革性研究，即具有强大潜力的开创性研究活动，为美国地理教育的广泛改善提供信息。国家地理教育研究中心将协调这一研究网络。该项目将通过建立网络、跨学科对话的机会以及公开可用的数据集和科学资源，最终形成可持续的研究路线，从而加强地理教育研究进程。通过涉及数十所大学和主要地理组织的合作进程，该项目将创建一个自给自足的RCN，其成员从事多种活跃的研究领域，以产生基于证据的实践、新的知识和理论、更健全的课程、更好的标准和评估，并扩大获得高质量地理教师培训计划的机会。在实践方面，RCN将努力提升地理教育作为研究领域的地位。这样做将有助于参与的大学招收更多样化的研究生群体，提高教师的研究效率，并促进利用研究来提高当地社区的地理教与学质量。美国国家科学基金会2011-2013年资助的21世纪地理教育路线图项目深入考虑了地理教育变革研究的必要性。路线图项目建立在之前评估地理教育研究状况的许多努力的基础上，于2013年发布了一项具有里程碑意义的学习和研究议程。路线图报告考虑了许多实质性问题，即哪些研究主题和问题对于确保学生成绩的长期进步和提高最为关键。它还提请注意如何设计渴望变革的地理教育研究这一重要的方法论问题。路线图项目的研究议程为建设地理教育的研究能力和能力提供了一套建议。它强调以科学的方法进行研究、规划和设计，以此作为超越目前地理教育文献特点的描述性、单一性和轶事研究的一种战略。制定这一愿景将需要其他学科的地理学家和教育研究人员之间进行大量的协调、合作和信息共享。这个RCN项目将首次提供开展这项工作所需的基础设施。

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.