Effects of teaching with mysteries on students' geographical thinking skills

Thinking Through Geography (TTG) strategies are popular in secondary education. Geography teachers see these strategies to be powerful to stimulate thinking geographically. However, empirical evidence is scarce. Based on a quasi-experimental design, effects of mysteries, one of the more famous TTG strategies, were examined on students geographical thinking in terms of their skills to relate phenomena. A multilevel regression analysis showed that students who used mysteries in geography lessons reported significantly more correct geographical relationships than students who attended the regular curriculum. We conclude that a mystery can be an effective TTG strategy for the development of students geographical thinking skills. Improvements of the pedagogy of using mysteries in Geography lessons are discussed. © 2013 Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.