Participants’ rough approximations of the U.S. outline left out key geographic features for the continental United States.
We were surprised by the number of people (particularly Michiganders) who left out the Upper Peninsula when drawing the outline.
More generally, individuals left out and/or altered key elements of the U. S. map, such as the location of Texas and the direction of Florida's peninsula.
When we inquired on our survey as to participants' confidence in naming the 50 states, their confidence was generally higher than their actual ability to name all 50. The average confidence level also did not correlate with individuals' ability to determine the directional extremes.
88% survey respondents rated themselves a 4 or 5 in confidence level for naming the 50 states; however, only one interviewee could actually name all 50.
An average of only 32% of interviewees correctly identified the most Northern, Southern, Western, and Eastern states.
3. Individuals relied upon both visualization of maps they've seen, as well as personal experience of states they've visited/personal perception to order the states from largest to smallest in terms of area. For the population ranking, we found that our participants again based their thinking off of personal experience.
On 2D maps, because of the flattening of the spherical shape of the Earth, Texas appears larger than California, even though area-wise California is larger.
Many participants decided New York's population ranking based on visiting NYC and having experienced crowds.
Others decided Florida’s population ranking knowing that Florida has Disney World, which is often crowded, as well as much retirement housing.
4. Our participants generally had more knowledge of landmarks/features near their home and/or places they have visited.
7 out of 8 participants accurately located Lake Erie, which makes sense given all 8 are Michiganders.
2 participants properly located Yellowstone, as they had visited there. Another participant located the Grand Canyon because a family member lived near there.