5.3 Summative discussion

Table 26 presents a summary of the various types of symbols in the environment used by the participants in Cases One and Two in their attempts to navigate the given route successfully.

It can be seen from Table 26 that taken together, axial lines, block numbers and free-standing objects were referenced by the adolescents more than twice as much as other major land-uses (such as playgrounds, schools, etc).  In terms of the nomenclature developed by Lynch (1960), the participants showed a preference for referencing paths and certain types of landmarks, over others.  This suggests that the significance that adolescents attribute to symbols in their environment is not necessarily in proportion to their relative sizes and superficial external visibility.

The noticeability of artificial structures in the environment, with respect to their prominence in the mental maps that all the adolescents who took part in this intervention construct, as they try to make sense of the immediate world around them, also surfaces in the conversations that the principal investigator engaged in, with the students during the panorama-rotation portion of the pre- and post-tests.  Figure 20, for example, is a transcript which took place between the principal investigator and Arvind, who turned in the overall sixth best performance in the spatial tests with respect to the population who participated in the main study.  For both the panorama-rotation exercises represented in this transcript, Arvind was able to accurately deduce not only the angle of rotation, but also the axis of rotation (in the transcript, ‘PI’ refers to the principal investigator, and ‘S’ refers to the student).

PRE-TEST
PI:    Which clues are you using
S:    First when i turn back i see a taxi stand
PI:    Taxi stand
S:    And then i saw a petrol station and then there’s a link here.  So then blocks here
PI:    Ok ok.  The taxi stand were you using the little shed or were you just using the line of taxis
S:    I was using the shed, because i can read here

POST-TEST
PI:    Ok why there
S:    Because the buildings
PI:    Yah the buildings are across. Then
S:    Umm the bridge ah
PI:    Ok that one there
S:    The jetty, and ah, this mall lah
PI:    Which would be where, boat quay mall ah
S:    Yah
PI:    Have a look behind you.  You did not really look behind you much, right. You were mainly looking across the river.  Try to refine your position using the scene behind you.
S:    Here?
PI:    Um. Why there
S:    Because there’s an opening

Figure 20.  Extract of transcript from Arvind’s pre- and post-tests

The prominence generally given by the participants to axial lines and buildings in the environment has already been mentioned.  A comparison of the present case with Case One (which was also at this site), reveals that of the four teams of four represented in these two cases, half of them saw the given checkpoint ‘track’ to mean the MRT track, while the other half took it to mean the walking track on the ground (referred to as a ‘red brick track’ in Case One, and a ‘stone track’ in the present case. 

This chapter has presented a comparison of the messaging exchanges and other outputs (such as the PowerPoint files) produced by two teams who participated in fieldwork tasks at the same neighbourhood.  The similarities and differences between the two cases thus sheds some useful light on the extent to which a learner’s operation within the ZPD is mediated not only socially, but also spatially. 

For example, it has already been described in Case One that one participant – Alex – took more than an hour to complete what his teammates Senthil and Yojit needed only eighteen minutes to do (namely, to correctly deduce the same portion of the route).  This suggests the importance of social mediations in a ZPD which is characterized by operators who are not co-present.  Evidence of this is given by the fact that Alex had to use more instances of the category of discourse known as ‘clarifications’ than Senthil and Yojit.  In fact, Alex failed to successfully deduce the entire route within the allotted time, despite sending messages more frequently than Senthil and Yojit (once every 3.2 minutes, compared to once every 3.7 minutes respectively).

This is congruent with the findings from Case Two and from other research into spatial discourse (such as Daniel and Denis, 1998, 2004; Denis, 1997; Denis et al., 1999; Bidwell, 2004), which suggest that for wayfinding to be effectively carried out, egocentric Frames of Reference must be used in complement with allocentric Frames.  For example, Denis et al. (1999: 147) describe three sets of cognitive operations which are usually required by the leader (that is, the person giving directions, as opposed to receiving them) in the production of route directions – namely, the activation of spatial knowledge relevant to the route, usage of the spatial knowledge in defining the route, and finally the formulation of the procedure that the person being led would have to use to move along the route.  This theme will be explored further in the next chapter, which presents a narrative experienced by a third group of participants at a different field site.

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