ARE YOU FUNCTIONALLY MAP LITERATE?

Planners and decision-makers working in a development context must use spatial information, but yet very little spatial information is used. A possible reason for this is that they are map illiterate, that is, they do not have the competence to use maps. Map literacy is not well understood but is accepted to be associated with literacy and numeracy. To better understand map literacy we can turn to the understanding of literacy and numeracy. Literacy does not mean much in practical terms and therefore functional literacy is used. Likewise, it is better to refer to functional map literacy. The definition and constructs of functional literacy are reviewed. As with reading, an understanding of the various map reading tasks is required. A review is made of studies in map reading. A definition for functional map literacy is proposed. This is followed by proposing a structure for skills level along the lines used for functional literacy levels. This is used to provide a measure for determining whether or not a person is functionally map literate.

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