Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
Journal of Geography in Higher Education, cilt.49, sa.5, ss.621-634, 2025 (SSCI)
Creative thinking skills are essential for designing maps with original and useful content. The main purpose of the present study was to enhance both geographic information systems (GIS) knowledge and creativity to support mapping skills through a semester-long undergraduate course. The study involved 20 pre-service teachers enrolled in a geography education program in Türkiye. We used an explanatory sequential design for data collection and analysis. We conducted paired-samples t-test and Wilcoxon test analyses for the quantitative part and semi-structured focus group interviews for the qualitative part. The quantitative findings showed a statistically significant increase in the participants’ GIS knowledge and creative thinking skills in the figural task. However, there was no statistically significant improvement in the verbal creativity tasks. The qualitative findings highlighted that the pre-service teachers adopted positive perspectives toward creativity and appreciated the contribution of creative thinking skills to mapping. In conclusion, our findings imply that integrating creative thinking skills into courses on GIS has the potential to contribute to pre-service geography teachers’ professional development by enhancing their knowledge and creativity.