This paper summarises the results of a suvey of the level of recognition of

European countries by university level students in Ireland and Zimbabwe. While Irish

students have a significantly higher level of recognition there are a number of common

features between the results of both surveys. Countries with distinctive shapes, large size

and/or coastal locations are best recognised. Also the member state"s of the European

Community are generally better known than members of other regional groupings. There is

also a high degree of confusion amongst both student samples in relation to members of

groupings that are frequently identified by historical/regional labels such as Scandinavia or

the Balkan states

Waddington, Shelagh B.

Walsh, James A.

English

MURAL - Maynooth University Research Archive Library

I I t r l I ,1' I ! r (}eographlcal VIewpoint Vol. 211993 CONTRASTS IN EUROPEAN AWARENESS BETWEEN IRISH AND ZIMBABWEAN STUDENTS SHELAGH B. WADDINGTON and JAMES A. WALSH Department of Geography, St. Patrick's College, Maynooth Abstract. This paper summarises the results of a su!Vey of the level of recognition of European countries by university level students in Ireland and Zimbabwe. While Irish students have a significantly higher level of recognition there are a number of common features between the results of both surveys. Countries with distinctive shapes, large size and/or coaslf!.l locations are best recognised. Also the member state"s of the European Community are generally better known than members of other regional groupings. There is also a high degree of confusion amongst both student samples in relation to members of groupings that are frequently identified by historical/regional labels such as Scandinavia or the Balkan states. In 1992 a unique opportunity arose to examine the comparative levels of locational knowledge of Europe attained by students in Ireland and in Zimbabwe. The two groups of students selected (113 Irish and 74 Zimbabwean) were both studying geography as part of their degree course and were at approximately the same stage in their studies. The approach adopted was based on an adaptation of the method of data collection used by King and McGrath (1988) for their study of the locational knowledge of African countries possessed by a group oflrish students. Hypotheses It was envisaged that this study would provide material to test the following hypotheses. (!) Recognition levels of European countries may vary between the Irish and Zimbabwean students. It was considered likely that the Irish would have a higher recognition rate, as their exposure to such information would be greater from such sources as holiday visits, media coverage, Ireland's EC membership, etc. Clearly, the African students would be disadvantaged in all these respects. (2) Recognition levels may be influenced by factors such as: location - coastal or inland; proximity - closer countries may be more recognised that distant ones; size - large or small area; membership of regional grouping (e.g. EC); recency of establishment- e.g. states of former USSR. (3) Possible confusion of country identity may exist within particular regions of Europe - e.g. Scandinavia. Administration of the Test Each student was supplied with an A4-sized map of Europe on which national boundaries were marked and each country numbered from I to40 (Figure I). The former Yugoslavia was shown on the map rather than the new states formed from 93 undertaken. On a separate sheet students were asked to list the name of each country beside its appropriate num!)er. This facilitated much more rapid processing of results than allowing students to write directly on to the maps (the method used by King and McGrath). Students were not supplied with a list of the names of the countries, although this might have improved success rates for the exercise. The use of a list was favoured by King and McGrath and would probably be desirable if the exercise was repeated with younger students. Respondents were allowed approxi-mately 20 minutes to complete the exercise. Figure 1. Europe map for test ATLAMT"C. OC~~·:. --~-~:;:. eJt 1 1o ( ·--·'<:"_:··· -· ··, .. r5-.,: 17 ,s \-,----.---.r ·--. _____ _ -., , ..... ·-.. T .. ·.:~: 6 \--·<;;·.:::::;( ,.,--.19 ••• • ; ••••• ) 24 ·'·· •• - ••••• 3~ ,':t-~~-~_: .. ····-~---··(_ :~-/· 28 ........... • 23 • ' \ ····: ;·--·· ,·. 30 -~~;-·\---~··.,,:· =-., "..rJ D MEDITERRANEAN SEA Results (1) Overall recognition rates ... I ('' . .. , ... -- ..... ··· .. ,_ -· ,. 0 200 400 600 The results confirmed the hypothesis that recognition levels were different for the two groups. The Irish group, as expected, were significantly more successful (with a mean recognition rate of approximately 23 countries) than the Zimbabwean group, who had a mean recognition rate of approximately 11 countries. Table 1 shows that none of the Irish students identified fewer than nine countries and one -third identified more than 25. By contrast, none of the Zimbabweans identified more than 23 while the recognition level for almost 40% was less than nine countries. 94 I Table 1. Summary ofrecogniiion levels by· Irish and Zimbabwean students ) Percentage of Students r No. of Countries Irish Zimbabwean r 0-8 0.0 37.8 9" 16 17.0 47.3 r 17" 24 49.5 14.9 25" 32 18.5 0.0 I 33 "40 15.0 0.0 Table 2. Ranking of countries according to level of Recognition by Irish and Zimbabwean Students Country Ireland Zimbabwe Country Ireland Zimbabwe Scotland I 13 Austria 21= 19= Italy 2= Turkey 21= 19= Portugal 2= 2 Poland 23 23 Spain 2= 2 Yugoslavia 24 25= Wales 2= 17 Albania 25 29= France 6 3= Czechoslovakia 26 18, Iceland 7= 9= Latvia 27= 31= Ireland 7= II Monaco 27= 31= England. 9= *19= Bulgaria 29 27 Germany 9= 5 Estonia 30 31= Denmark 11 12 Lithuania 31= 27= Norway 12= 8 Romania 31= 29= Sweden 12= 7 Ukraine 33 31= Belgium 14 15 Lichtenstein 34 31 Greece 15 6 Hungary 35 21 Finland 16 9= Andorra 36 31= Netherlands 17 16 Armenia 37= 31= Switzerland 18 22 Azerbaijan 37= 31= Luxemburg 19 25= Georgia 37= 31= Russia 20 14 Moldova 40 31= *See text 95 Figure 2a. Percentage oflrish Students correctly identifying ea.ch country Percentage recognition rates for individual countries are shown on Figures 2a and 2b for Irish students and on Figure 2b for Zimbabwean students. When rank order of successful identification was examined only a relatively weak correlation (r, = 0.4556) was found between the rank order for the two groups, see Table 2. However, if just the best known and the least known are compared a correlation becomes much more apparent as seven of the ten most recognised and seven of the ten least recognised are common to both groups (see Table 3). Many of the Zimbabwean students misidentified England as the UK. If this mistake is ignored then England would also be among the most recognised for this group as it is for the Irish students. (2) Factors affecting rates of recognition Location: For both groups it was found that none of the best recognised countries was entirely landlocked. Indeed, with the exception of Germany they had long coastlines. Well recognised countries were, in general, In the west of Europe. The only exception to this finding was Greece, which was the sixth most recognised country by the Zimbabweans, and it was also recognised by more lrish students than neighbouring states. It is possible that factors such Greece's membership oftheEC, 96 • r r J J l 'I 1 1 I Rank I 2 3= 3= 5 6 7 8 9= 9= Figure 2b. Percentage·or Zimbabwean students correctly identifying each country Table 3. Most Recognised and Least Recognised Countries Most Recognised Least Recognised Zimbabwe Rank Ireland Rank Zimbabwe Rank Ireland Italy I Scotland 31= Latvia 31= Lithuania Portugal 2= Italy 31= Monaco 31= Romania Spain 2= Portugal 31= Estonia 33 Ukraine France 2= Spain 31= Ukraine 34 Lichtenstein Germany 2= Wales 31= Lichtenstein 35 Hungary Greece 6 France 31= Andorra 36 Andorra Sweden 7= Iceland 31= Armenia 37= Armenia Norway 7= Ireland 31= Azerbaijan 37= Azerbaijan Iceland 9= England 31= Georgia 37= Georgia Finland 9= Germany 31= Moldova 40 Moldova • 97 historical significance and its importance as a holiday destination may have influenced this finding, Proximity: Those countries closest to Ireland were better recognised than the rest of Europe. They were also EC partners and tend to be the European destination countries of most Irish emigrants and tourists. They were also the best recognised countries by Zimbabweans, who are not EC members, do not live close to any European country and of whom relatively few migrate to any European country. Thus, it is not possible to arrive at any finn conclusion on the effect of proximity. Regional grouping: For Irish students nine of the ten most recognised countries were EC members (Iceland being the only exception) and six of those most recognised by Zimbabweans were also EC member states. Neither group was particularly successful in identifying former members of the Warsaw Pact or COMECON groups. Indeed, membership of these latter groupings appears to correlate negatively with recognition as 8 out of ten Irish and 7 out of the ten Zimbabwean least identified countries were members of these groupings. Size and Shape: Distinctive shape appeared to affect recognition levels positively, for example Italy (with its distinctive "boot" shape) was identified by 87% of Zimbabwean students and by 99% of Irish students, while Hungary (an indetermi-nate ovoid shape) was only recognised by 19% and 22% respectively. Small size had in general a negative effect on recognition, with Lichtenstein, Andorra and Monaco being identified by only small numbers oflrish students and by none of the Zimbabweans. Luxemburg was recognised by only 8% of Zimbabweans, but was identified successfully by 68% of Irish students. This higher recognition rate may be explained by its membership of the EC, which would ensure a higher level of media attention, for example during Luxemburg's recent EC presidency, and because of the location of some EC institutions within that state. Other small countries are also found within the least recognised group, for example Moldova, but it is reasonable to suggest that the recency of their independent status may have had a greater effect on recognition rates than did size. Newly independent states: States which had only recently been recognised as independent by the international community were very poorly identified by all students. Theonlyexception to this was Russia. Six states of the former USSR were not identified by any Zimbabwean students and by only a small number of Irish students. No former USSR states were identified by more than 29% (33 students) of the Irish group. Russia was clearly recognised by the majority of respondents in both groups, but was incorrectly designated as either the USSR or CIS by many of them (41% of Zimbabwean and 43% of Irish respondents). (3) Regional confusions Some mis-identifications were clearly wild guesses, for example one Irish student identified Turkey as India and one Zimbabwean student thought Wales was China. , However, in both groups common errors frequently involved confusion between : i neighbouring countries, for example the three physically linked Scandinavian ' i' countries ofNorway, Sweden and Finland were frequently mistaken for each other. j 1'-1 ~~~~9_8_ Where overall recognition rates were lower this confusion appeared more marked, for example a large number of respondents knew the names ofthethree Baltic States ofEstonia, LatVia and Lithuania, but a much smaller percentage could identify them individually. The same confusion appeared to exist between Hungary and Yugo-slavia. Interestingly while only 23% of Zimbabwean students named England correctly, a further 63% identified it as either the United Kingdom or Great Britain. It may be argued that the UK has a unitary status in the world and, therefore, Zimbabweans would be much more familiar with the group name than that of the separate countries, which are referred to much less frequently. Only one Irish respondent made the same error. Also Zimbabwe is a former British colony and so the term Great Britain is probably more familiar than the names of the individual countries of which it is composed. Scotland was correctly identified by a greater percentage of Zimbabwean students than England (35%) although Wales had a similar success rate to England. Since the test was administered in Zimbabwe by a visiting Irish person, it is impossible to assess the previous level of knowledge of Ireland's location as it may be supposed that some students would have been sufficiently curious to find out where their visitor came from on a map, if they did not already know. It is, however, possible that it is more easily identifiable than Wales or Scotland either because it is an independent country, because of its peri ph era! (and thus more noticeable) location, or because it is an island. Russia was identified by over 40% of both groups as the USSR or CIS, indicating actual knowledge of the country, but a possible lack of knowledge of current affairs, despite maps appearing on television and in the press showing the newly independ-ent republics and their names being widely used. This would suggest that, as with the confusion over recognition of England, the problem may not be one of lack of some knowledge of a location, but much more a lack of attention to changes after a particular set of facts has been first committed to memory. It is of interest to note that despite the conflicts which have raged in the former Yugoslavia it was identified successfully by only 48% of Irish students and a mere 8% of Zimbabweans. In the case of the Irish respondents, this represents ·an improvement on level of recognition by a previous comparable group in 1990, but at the time of the study maps of the region were shown almost nightly on the television news and in the daily papers. This would appear to provide support for the suggestion that even geography students, who might be supposed to be more map conscious than the general population, do not always pay close attention to information presented in this form. Comparisons with Irish Recognition of African Countries Zimbabwean students were slightly more successful on average at identifying European countries, with a 27% success rate, compared with 23% for the Irish students who did the exercise on African countries. Approximately half of the Zimbabweans could identify no more than 25% of the countries of Europe, compared 99 with 70% of King and McGrath's Irish group who could identify fewer than one quarter of the countries ofAfrica. On the other hand there were several countries in Europe which none of the Zimbabweans could identify, whereas there was no country in Africa which was not identified successfully by at least one Irish student. Many of King and McGrath's findings about factors influencing recognition of African countries by Irish students were reciprocated by Zimbabwean students identifying European countries. In both cases no country was correctly identified by all respondents, generally larger countries were better known than smaller ones and countries located near to each other tended to be confused. However, while proximity to Europe appeared to influence the recognition rate for Irish students, Zimbabweans recognised both southern European countries, such as Greece and northern ones, such as Norway well. Peripheral location and distinctive shape, both identified by King and McGrath as being important for African recognition, would appear to have more influence than proximity for Zimbabwean students. Conclusions This exercise has provided some interesting suggestions about factors which make countries memorable and also produced some thoughtful discussion among both participating groups about these factors. It would be interesting to repeat the exercise with younger Irish students, particularly bearing in mind the decrease in the specifically regional content of the Junior Certificate course in comparison with the previous examination courses and in view of the comments made in various places about the effects of this on the locational knowledge of our students. Reference IGng R. &McGrath, F. (1988)Mapping the Geography ofignorance. GeographicalViewpoinl, 16, 1988, 73-80. L 100 .I I ,! [ I .I I f I I j 

Contrasts in European awareness between Irish and Zimbabwean students

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Contrasts in European awareness between Irish and Zimbabwean students

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