1.4 Limitations of Study

The present study does not attempt to address possible demographic variables, gender excepted, which might have governed the degree of success with which synchronous online exchanges can take place.

Further, the research is confined to an investigation of how text- and picture-messaging can augment (or detract from) communication between members of existing social groups, as opposed to the extent to which it can foster group creation, or enhance interaction between large or spatially non-contiguous groups.  Likewise, other forms of social software, such as instant messaging, blogs and wikis, are not explored, in the present research, for their potential pedagogical uses.

With respect to curricular coverage, the intervention limits itself to the use of messaging technologies in orienteering and debating activities.  While there are doubtless many potential applications of multimedia messaging in more explicit scientific enquiry and linguistic skills acquisition, an investigation of such is beyond the bounds of this study.

From the point of view of the students involved in the research intervention, each student was only taken on two fieldtrips – one for each task.  Students therefore had no opportunity to have subsequent attempts at the task (specifically to try to improve their orienteering performance).  The limited number of fieldtrips, and the number of classes involved, was ultimately dictated by the constraints of the academic timetable and class size.

These limitations will be revisited in the concluding chapter, in which they would be put into perspective in the light shed by the analysis and discussion of the research data.

<- 1.3 Research Questions and Purpose          -> 1.5 Significance of the Research