The development of research skills in discipline of Geography in the secondary level:

a didactic experience

Abstract

What skills does Geography promote in students who complete the 11th year in Portugal (with 17 years old) of Secondary Education? The discipline mobilizes a considerable number of students, being the third most selected option at national level. This article
focuses on an investigation carried out with a group from a Secondary School in Montijo,
in the Lisbon Metropolitan Area, in 2017. Over a sequence of eleven classes, in which
their perceptions of the entire process were collected, students mobilized information
from diverse sources, as part of a commitment to developing their territorial citizenship.
In their research, students used more often Internet search engines – perhaps contradicting
themselves in their concern to value the credibility of information sources. Their
research emerges as one of the most difficult steps for students, which reinforces the need
to develop research skills. The same students recognized, unequivocally, the improvement
of their performance in the collection and treatment of information throughout the
didactic sequence, which confirms the decisive role of geographic education in the development
of research skills.