Os Exames Nacionais de Geografia de 2019 e a sua capacidade de avaliar o Pensamento Espacial

The development of spatial thinking is a key objective of Geographical Education. Because of that, it is important to analyse if the national exams of Geography of Portugal are able to evaluate this key objective of Geographical Education. We analysed all the questions of the three exams of Geography of the year 2019 and we classified these questions using the Taxonomy of Spatial Thinking developed by Jo and Bednarz, 2009. We concluded that in these Geography’s exams of 2019 the majority of the questions evaluate the spatial thinking in a low level. The questions that ask a spatial thinking in a middle level are almost not existing and there are few questions evaluating the spatial thinking in the higher level of the taxonomy. Because of this, the results of our research are in the same line of the results of other authors that defend the national exams of Geography of secondary education in Portugal need to change and also the curriculum of this education level for the subject of Geography