Cognitive maps of a college campus: A new look at freshman orientation

Abstract

College freshmen were tested for spatial knowledge of their campus after 3 weeks, 3 months, and 6 months of experience. Surprisingly, knowledge of landmarks, routes, and configurations was very good after only 3 weeks, and increased significantly up to 3 months; further increases in spatial knowledge were not significant. Males had significantly more landmark knowledge than females; however, males and females did not differ significantly on route and configuration knowledge. The results are discussed in terms of the importance of distinguishing various types of spatial knowledge and developing assessment techniques for each that are unconfounded by irrelevant performance factors. © 1979, The Psychonomic Society, Inc.. All rights reserved.