CERTAIN ASPECTS OF THE EXPANSION OF QUANTITATIVE METHODOLOGY IN AMERICAN GEOGRAPHY

Abstract

Since the nineteenth century, American geographers have applied mathematical concepts to geographic research, and they have increased the level of mathematical sophistication associated with their research. To some extent geographers have traditionally been interested in developing methods of quantitative geographic analysis; however, it was not until the turn of the twentieth century that there was concentrated effort to develop special programs of quantitative methods training and to expand the scope of quantitative geographic research. This paper attempts to examine certain aspects of expansion of quantitative methods training and research for the period 1954–1965. Since the early 1950's the number of major geography departments offering specialized training in quantitative methodology has risen from three percent to over seventy-eight percent. Today many departments require training in statistics and mathematics and roughly one third of the major American doctoral training centers now allow their students to substitute mathematics training for one foreign language requirement. This trend is paralleled by an increasingly large number of quantitative dissertations and quantitative research papers found in a sample of the major geographic journals. Our studies indicate that these trends originated at the University of Washington, and certain Midwestern universities, but after a short period of time, the quantitative revolution spread throughout American geographic centers.

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