Strategies of academic writing as a tool for developing research-oriented learning in geography teacher education

Abstract

In contemporary teacher education, academic writing is regarded as a key meta-competence reflecting students’ analytical thinking and readiness for research. However, in geography teacher education, writing often remains descriptive and provides limited support for interpreting spatial processes and developing research-oriented thinking. This is problematic because future geography teachers must analyze spatial, cartographic, field-based, and socio-cultural data. The study aims to determine whether architectural terminology can serve as an interdisciplinary cognitive framework for developing research-oriented academic writing among future geography teachers. Its originality lies in integrating architectural conceptual terminology with geographic information systems (GIS)-supported academic writing instruction within a unified pedagogical framework. A mixed-methods approach combined quantitative and qualitative analyses of students’ written work before and after the intervention, alongside field observations, GIS-based spatial analysis, expert evaluation, and comparative text coding. The results indicate a shift from descriptive to analytical writing, demonstrated by increased use of interdisciplinary concepts such as “structure,” “scale,” and “composition,” stronger argumentation, and deeper interpretation of spatial processes. Expert evaluation confirmed improvements in critical reasoning and visual data presentation. The findings suggest that architectural vocabulary can function as a cognitive scaffold for higher-order thinking and research-oriented learning, contributing to the modernization of geography teacher education and competency-based academic writing instruction.