When GIS Succeeds: Fostering Critical Spatial Thinking through Geography Education on Rural Depopulation

Rural depopulation is one of the most significant territorial challenges facing many European regions and provides a relevant context for geography education. This study examines the impact of a GIS-based teaching intervention on the development of geographical competences among pre-service primary teachers. A quasi-experimental pretest–posttest design was implemented with 95 students enrolled in a Primary Education Teacher Training Degree. The intervention combined geohistorical sources, official demographic data, GIS tools, scientific literature, and the creation of Story Maps. Learning outcomes were assessed across five dimensions: conceptual understanding, spatial thinking, quantitative competence, digital competence, and metacognitive awareness. The results show substantial improvements in digital (g = 0.71), quantitative (g = 0.62), and conceptual (g = 0.57) competences. In contrast, spatial thinking (g = –0.53) and meta-cognitive awareness (g = –0.43) did not show immediate gains. Rather than indicating learning loss, these findings suggest a process of cognitive readjustment associated with more complex spatial and reflective tasks. The study indicates that GIS-based approaches are effective for strengthening technical and procedural competences in teacher education. However, the development of higher-order geographical thinking and critical territorial awareness appears to re-quire longer interventions and more explicit reflective strategies. These findings contribute to powerful geography education by providing evidence on both the potential and limitations of GIS for addressing complex territorial issues and by offering a transferable teaching model for European educational contexts.