This dissertation compares the impacts on student learning outcomes: self-efficacy, content knowledge, and geography skills, when Web-based GIS is used to teach introductory human geography. While GIS has been used at all levels of education, there exists a shortage of empirical data related to the effectiveness of GIS education on student learning. Two instructional strategies for problem-solving and data exploration are compared: the use of paper maps and the use of Web-based GIS.

Analyses of students' learning outcomes show no significant difference between instructional strategies in regards to pre-test or post-test scores or the performance skills assessment. The research findings indicate that Web-based GIS is an effective alternative to using paper maps to teach introductory human geography.

However, while students who used Web-based GIS demonstrated learning gains comparable to those achieved by students who used paper maps, exposure to GIS technology within the introductory geography course had concomitant benefits. Students who used Web-based GIS saw value in the technology and reported that it was more engaging than using paper maps. Students learned geography while at the same time being introduced to a powerful technology for problem-solving and analysis.

In addition, Web-based GIS may encourage students to develop a more empirical approach to problem-solving. Comparisons of the geography skills performance assessments suggest that students who used Web-based GIS are more likely to include data-tables or data values to support their findings.

Tangential to the principal focus of this research, analysis of the self-efficacy assessments revealed two important relationships. Both the pre- and the post-test self-efficacy surveys were positively correlated with the pre- and the post-test geography content knowledge scores. In addition, data analysis revealed gender-based differences in pre-test self-efficacy surveys. Male students rated their self-efficacy higher than did female students. At the end of the 10-week class, female students showed significantly higher gains in self-efficacy than did male students, which equalized the gender-based differences in post-test self-efficacy.