Toponymic Knowledge and Territorial Literacy in Pre-Service Primary Education Teachers: Effects of a Didactic Intervention in Extremadura and La Rioja

This study analyses the toponymic learning of students enrolled in the Degree in Primary Education programme following a didactic intervention carried out at the Universities of Extremadura and La Rioja. The research was designed as a quasi-experimental study with a pretest and posttest in non-equivalent groups and focused on eight variables related to the identification and location of provincial boundaries, provincial capitals, county seats, and counties. The main objective was to examine the development of toponymic knowledge and to analyse possible differences according to the methodology applied and the group of origin. The results show significant differences between the pretest and posttest in a relevant proportion of the variables analysed, especially in provincial boundaries, provincial capitals, and counties, whereas no significant changes were observed in county seats (i.e., the main towns or functional centres of the Spanish comarcas). In the unadjusted posttest analyses, no statistically significant differences were found between the traditional and interactive methodology; however, exploratory adjusted ANCOVA analyses suggested possible partial methodological tendencies in some specific dimensions, particularly in the identification of counties, although these results should be interpreted cautiously because not all ANCOVA assumptions were met. Likewise, the correlations between identification and location were very high in both phases. Overall, the findings suggest that toponymic tasks based on identification and location can support basic dimensions of territorial literacy in initial teacher education, although they should not be interpreted as a comprehensive assessment of spatial thinking as a whole.