Educational Media Research in Geography

Geography textbooks and maps constitute a common area of interest across the consortium. International literature on educational media, textbooks, and maps served as theoretical foundation for the work carried out in the three national settings. In addition, all three groups work in a genuine post-socialist context and thus share common educational frameworks, structures, and processes.

Despite these similarities, every group has explored unique facets and processes using quite different research methods. This variety, however, serves as the starting point of collaborative work to be consolidated during the two CENTRAL workshops.

The first CENTRAL workshop (approx. May 2020, Berlin) aims at consolidating the common grounds for further work. Exploring the five research questions requires theoretical and methodological input. Three keynotes will update the participants regarding theories and methods of educational media research. Subsequent workshops along the main research questions will contextualise previous work along the methodological expertise of each research group. For example, in methodological terms, qualitative methods (widely used at ELTE) will support variable exploration in different national settings in preparation of surveys (already conducted at CU). Eye-tracking studies (vast experience at HU) will help better understand map usage by both teachers and students when working with textbook spreads. Time will be dedicated to develop junior researchers’ transferable skills. The main outcome of the first workshop is the timeline of empirical data collection required to proceed with seeking out third-party funding once the CENTRAL workshops are concluded.

The second workshop (approx. November 2020, Prague) will consists of three types of activities. First, empirical data collected, processed, and interpreted at the three universities, will be presented in workshops. Second, content and structure of the different papers will be sketched and refined. Junior researchers under the guidance of seniors play an important role in this process, as this is a great opportunity for skills acquisition. Third, invited experts on funding schemes, grant proposal preparation and submission will work with the stakeholders to identify the most suitable funding scheme available at the end of 2020. In addition, responsibilities and timelines regarding grant writing will be agreed upon. In sum, the main outcome of the second CENTRAL workshop are clearly distributed roles concerning joint publications and grant application along with a realistic timeline.