The investigation of the spatial cognition skills of the nineth classes of students in geography

The objective of this study is to detect the spatial cognition of the 9th classes of students in geograph lessson. In this research, its tried to reveal the level at the students about the informations of place organization, route and position; which are the essential subjects of place cognition.The study made with ten students, is carried out in a Vocational and Technical Anatolian High school in the centre of Agrı during seven weeks. This study, which is carried out according to the qualitative research methods, is a case study made by using observation, discussion and the analysis of documents.In this study, to quantify in the informations of place organization, its applied with one route information determination device, four position information determination devices and in order to quantfy the informations of place organization, its applied with a model environment workout. After the study in order to evaluate the feeling and the ideas of the students about the study its carried out a semi structured conversation form. By analyzing the maesuring devices, its reached out these findings 40% of the students have a "very good" level of route skill at the level of description of route according to the total position points, its detected that while 90% of the students are at a "good" level, 10% of the students are at a "moderate" level. According to the total place organization points,its determined that 60% of the student are at a "good" level and 40% of the students are at a "moderate" level. According these findings, its seen that the students come to schoolm without gaining the spatial cognition skill not exactly and have great deficiences in their spatial cognitions including close surroundings. Its seen that they fail in description about the lived place and enviroment and also giving locating the surrounding cities and countries Key Words: Geography, Place Cognition, Position, Route, Spatial Cognition.