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Introduction
Landicho, C. J. B. (2020). Senior high school students’ perceptions and attitudes toward the use of Google Maps as instructional
tool in Earth Science. The Normal Lights, 14(1), 141-168.
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out that students expressed positive attitudes towards the use of these
tools and that the use of GIS likewise promoted abstract and reflective
thinking skills (Marra et al., 2017). The number of subjects for which
GIS can be integrated likewise attests to its potential in teaching and
learning (Tan & Chen, 2015).
The Earth science course is one of the core subjects of the Science,
Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) strand of the
Academic Track of the Senior High School (SHS) curriculum (Ocampo,
2014). Currently, it consists of learning competencies and performance
standards that students are expected to achieve at the end of the course.
These learning objectives include the use of maps and diagrams to
understand Earth processes such as the formation of folds, faults, rift
valleys, and mountain ridges (DepEd, 2013) To achieve this goal,
different maps and other geographic representations are needed.
Consequently, the existing thrust of the Department of Education
(DepEd) emphasizes the need to integrate ICT alongside the different
formative assessments and instructional approaches in the delivery of
lessons (DepEd, 2016).
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The present study hinges around the premise that the use of web-
based tools such as Google Maps promotes spatial thinking among
learners. The present study posits that Google Maps may be integrated
as an instructional tool in teaching and learning specific concepts in
Earth science as shown in Figure 1. As students engage in activities
utilizing geospatial technologies such as Google Maps, they will most
likely develop certain perceptions and attitudes toward appreciating or
rejecting their use. Understanding how learners perceive the potential of
Google Maps in helping them understand key concepts in Earth science
(such as recognizing landscape structures that are usually identified with
faults) can give teachers and students the opportunity to discern how to
maximize its capability. These perceptions may also provide valuable
insights that can help in crafting programs that foster technology in the
teaching of geosciences topics in Philippine secondary schools. This
inferred relationship is represented by the double-arrow between Google
Map’s use in Earth science and the students’ perceptions and attitudes
towards it.
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Methodology
Instruments
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high school Earth science class tackling lessons on faults and other
landforms associated with them. Prior to the administration of the self-
evaluation form (SEF), an online Google Maps activity (GMA) was done
by the students. The GMA is a five-item, researcher-made formative map
test intended to gauge the ability of students to recognize landforms, such
as valleys and lineaments, that are generally related to faults. The SEF
focused on eliciting the students’ perception on the usability of Google
Maps in Earth science instruction. The questions in the SEF (adapted
from Demirci et al., 2013) sought the following information:
(1) Students’ prior use of Google Maps and the nature of their
usage
(2) Skills that were developed during the Google Maps activity
(3) Challenges that were encountered during the activity
(4) Recommendations to further improve the delivery of the
Google Maps exercise
(5) Students’ perception of Google Maps’ usability in teaching
Earth science concepts
(6) Self-evaluation regarding one’s attitude towards Google
Maps and its impact on individual motivation
The SEF is divided into five parts. This survey questionnaire was
approved by the faculty development office of the researcher’s home
institution. The first part asked for the students’ prior use of Google
Maps in their other academic subjects. The questions included in this
first part of the SEF are shown in Table 1. The second and third sections
of the SEF asked for the challenges encountered and suggestion to
improve the GMA, respectively. The fourth section of the SEF sought
the respondents view on the effectiveness of Google Maps and other
GIS-based applications in understanding Earth science. Lastly, the fifth
section consisted of an eight-item questionnaire with Cronbach’s alpha
of .802, which can be assumed to indicate high level of internal
consistency. Survey items in the fifth section of the SEF are presented in
Table 2. The SEF also included open-ended questions regarding the
students’ perception of the effectivity of Google Maps in enhancing the
discussion of the topic, the challenges that they encountered during the
activity, and their recommendations on how this activity can further be
improved.
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Study Context
The study used data sourced from the first semester of school year 2018-
2019 in two stages: the GMA and the administration of the SEF. Prior to
the session, the students were asked to bring their own devices,
preferably laptop computers, which can connect to the Internet and can
access the Google Maps website (maps.google.com). A brief orientation
on how to use Google Maps was given at the start of the activity. This
orientation discussed the basic features of Google Maps such as
navigating the map, zooming in and out, using and changing the map
scale (e.g., from meters to feet), and changing the map view (e.g., map,
satellite, terrain). After the orientation, the students were instructed to
observe Figure 2, identify any landform or pattern on the Earth’s surface
that they infer are related to faults, and discuss among themselves their
observations.
Individual answer sheets for the GMA were then distributed to the
students after the discussion and sharing. These answer sheets included
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After the students have completed answering the activity, a short lecture
for about 10 to 15 minutes was given to discuss how linear features or
lineaments, as well as fault scarps and ridge valleys may be used to infer
the location of faults on the Earth’s surface (see Huggett, 2011). The area
shown in Figure 1 was re-examined. After a closer inspection, two
prominent linear features can be seen in Figure 2. These features
correspond to the West Valley Fault and East Valley Fault (of the
Marikina Valley Fault System) (Rimando & Knuepfer, 2006). These
faults are delineated by the solid and dashed red lines in Figure 3.
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Data Collection
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Data Analysis
The responses in the SEF were examined and hereby presented using
descriptive statistics such as means and standard deviations, frequencies,
and percentages. It should be noted that the items in the SEF were
answered using a numerical scale as follows: 5 – Strongly Agree; 4 –
Agree; 3 – Neutral; 2 – Disagree; 1 – Strongly Disagree. Emerging
themes in the responses to the open-ended questions were identified and
presented in the succeeding section.
It can be gleaned, however, that more than half of the class were
not able to deduce the coordinates of an area (70%) and use the distance
measuring tool of Google Maps (87%). As majority of the students have
not used Google Maps in any academic activity before, it might be the
case that they too are unfamiliar to its other function aside from the ones
discussed in the orientation, which were used in the activity.
Furthermore, looking for the coordinates of a point and measuring the
distance between two points in Google Maps were not explicitly part of
the GMA but were simply hinted by the teachers for students to explore
once they are done answering the activity. Interestingly, Pechenkina and
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Table 1. Prior use of Google Maps in other subjects and skills learned in the
activity (n=30)
Responses in
%
Questions Yes No
Do you have any prior experience of using Google 3 97
Maps in any of your academic subjects before?
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“Google Maps provides a bridge between the classroom and the real
life. Through Google Maps we may be more appreciative of the lessons
taught in Earth science.”
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However, it is also worth noting that more than half (57%) of the
students remained neutral when asked if they will continue using Google
Maps. Furthermore, 40% and 47% of the students maintained a neutral
stance when asked if Google Maps helped them to think critically and
sparked their interest in GIS, respectively. As shown in Table 1, 97% of
the respondents indicated that the activity was their first time to use
Google Maps in an academic subject. Given this unfamiliarity or limited
exposure, it might take some time and practice for these students to fully
appreciate the value and application of Google Maps in academic and
non-academic usage, especially in the midst of other widely used online
technologies such as social networking sites. In addition, other factors
affecting students’ preferences of educational technologies remain
undocumented or unexplored despite students’ general positive
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“[…] you should allow the students to “play around” with the application
to be more accustomed”
Conclusion
The potential of geospatial tools such as virtual globes and other web-
based GIS as educational tools has been the subject of previous
investigations worldwide. However, a quick survey of available
literature would suggest that Google Maps, an online mapping platform,
has received relatively less attention compared to other GIS-based tools.
In the Philippines, the utilization of accessible, cost-efficient, and user-
friendly educational technologies such as Google Maps may help in
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Recommendations
Despite the positive outlook offered by the results of this study, readers
are cautioned of its limited scope in terms of the topics covered, number
of participants, and length of intervention. Future researchers may
extend the application of Google Maps in other competencies required
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Acknowledgement
The author would like to express his gratitude to Prof. Ali Demirci; the
students who participated in this study; Dr. Jeremy M. Rimando, Mr.
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