Use of geographic information systems (GIS) in geography lessons according to teachers’ opinion

The purpose of the present study is to determine geography teachers’ opinions about how often, for what reasons and for what subjects the geographic information systems (GIS) are used in geography lessons. This qualitative study was carried out based on phenomenological design. The study was conducted with 15 geography teachers servicing at different schools in a city of Turkey. The teachers’ opinions were obtained via the semi-structured interview form developed by the researcher and the series of obtained data were analysed via the content analysis method. The study results showed that a great majority of the teachers did not use the GIS in their lessons and the reason for this was that they are not having sufficient knowledge about how to use them. Also, the teachers emphasised the insufficiency of possibilities, infrastructure, software and hardware. However, it was observed that all the teachers agreed on the necessity of using the GIS in geography lessons.