7.6 Limitations and Areas for Further Research

Chapter One outlined the deliberate parameters that bounded this study.  For instance, demographic variables other than gender were not subject to analysis.  The only form of social software investigated was the use of text- and picture-messages – other forms, including instant messaging, online discussion forums, blogs and podcasts, were not considered.  Further, the text- and picture-messages were used in very specific ways, namely in wayfinding and debating.  The study also focused on the communication between existing social groups (that is, students from the same class in a school), rather than looking at how social software might foster the creation of new groups.  The final deliberate design limitation was that participants were to take part only once each in the orienteering task and the perspectives task – they would not have the opportunity to refine their orienteering technique for a second go.

Since participants were drawn from the same age cohort, gender was chosen as the sole demographic variable primarily for reasons of convenience.  As the only demographic differentiator that was immediately apparent, noting participants’ gender was easily done.  For the wayfinding and debating activities in the field, participants were grouped either according to the recommendations of their respective teachers-in-charge, or were permitted to form their own groups.  In retrospect, it might have been worthwhile to have exercised a little more control over group formation, in order to better analyse the influence of gender on wayfinding and the conveyance of multimodal navigational information.

It should also be acknowledged that the effect of the characteristics of each neighbourhood on the data from the present study was not considered.  Of the seven neighbourhoods used in the main study, five of them had a hundred percent success rate in terms of the participants successfully completing the orienteering task, with the remaining two having one unsuccessful case each.  The average time taken to complete the orienteering tasks ranged from 55 minutes for Pasir Panjang to 83 minutes for Sembawang Hills.  To some extent, the variation in duration can be explained by the differential distances of the respective routes: the correlation is 0.615, p = 0.141.

Nevertheless, even if it considered that the neighbourhoods were not equally challenging to navigate, that would not detract from the integrity of the study because that assumption (that the neighbourhoods were of equal challenge) was never assumed to be a design premise in the first place.  In other words, be the neighbourhoods challenging or easy to navigate, what was under investigation was the nature of the discourse.  In fact during the analysis of the pilot data and the subsequent inductive inferences regarding the classifications of the various instantiations of discourse, care was taken to devise nominal modes of discourse which would reflect general problem-solving strategies (for example, ‘procedural questions’, ‘questions checking for understanding’ etc), rather than modes which would pertain specifically to the navigation of terrain.  This deliberate decision was taken in order to increase the transferability of the findings of the study into learning-contexts which are not necessarily field-based.  

Some of the preceding points suggest several avenues to take the present research further.  For example, with the advent of mobile-blogging, or moblogging, it is not inconceivable for similar studies to be designed in which participants in the field interact in real-time with their peers in the classroom.  To what extent might such ‘remotely-controlled’ exploration yield different results with respect to adolescent constructions of space and place?  Similarly, so-called 3G (or Third Generation) high-speed mobile networks were finally rolled out in Singapore in 2005.  They are hyped to allow picture- and video-messaging to become a lag-free reality.  The extent to which such improvements in telephony infrastructure might prove to offer true affordances to pedagogical applications begs investigation.

Conversely, the design could also be modified in much simpler ways.  For instance, the design could be implemented across a broader spread of age cohorts.  Further, if logistics were to permit, it would be interesting to investigate the effect which multiple iterations of the orienteering task would have on the various measures which could be taken.  Such a study would also shed valuable light on how students learn to learn.  

To conclude, this thesis has described research into the elements in suburban environments in Singapore which adolescents invest meaning in, both when navigating and when engaging in discussions on local geographies.  At least as early as the fourth century B.C., the question of man’s relationship to his immediate space has occupied the minds of the greatest thinkers.  For example, Aristotle conceptualized the following conundrum: if a boat is moored in a flowing river, is the place always changing, since the containing fluid is?  A more contemporary take would be to ponder if the spectacles on one’s nose change their location as one moves from room to room.  One’s answer to these puzzles depends of course on what one takes as one’s point of reference.  Further, such points of spatial reference are not universal across societies, but instead are culturally specific.  Levinson (2003), for instance, relates the story of a Mayan woman who, on the first night in an unfamiliar hotel far from the hills, asks her husband “is the hot water in the uphill tap?”*

Thus, undergirded by an adaptation of classical cultural-historical activity theory – in which the interactions between subjects and with a common object are unequal (Wells, 2002) – the study suggests that taking part in these field interventions, which focus on developing observational skills (as opposed to the more common focus on the gathering of empirical data) might have a positive effect on some aspects of the participants’ spatial intelligence, specifically with regards their orientational abilities.  Analysis of the data has identified the ways in which spatial discourse can successfully be employed to construct and mediate Zones of Proximal Development in which the protagonists are not necessarily co-located.  The data has also highlighted the importance for instructional designers to be cognizant of the preferred learning modalities and naïve geographies which novice learners bring with them; more encouragingly, the data points towards the viability of incorporating messaging technologies in fieldwork, as a means of surfacing and addressing these various learner needs, as well as to augment geographical understandings of local environments.

Throughout this chapter, several suggestions have been made with respect to classroom practice and wider curriculum policy.  These have included designing geographical fieldwork around activities which focus on developing students’ powers of observation (as opposed to the collection of empirical data), and using simple QuickTime VR panoramas of local environments to augment the teaching of map-reading and interpretation.  The data has also pointed to the role played by gender on the preferred modalities of communication and visualisation in spatial cognition.  Notwithstanding the limitations of the study described in preceding paragraphs, it is hoped that when some or all of these suggestions are taken together to inform geographical curriculum design, one of the outcomes should be an increased confidence in navigating and making sense of one’s local environment, and thereby a more thorough understanding of some of the issues affecting it.

One year after participating in the field intervention described in this study, some of the students – and their geography teacher – took the initiative to share their feedback on how they had been able to apply their new skills into the regular school curriculum.  It is with their voices that I would like to conclude this thesis, because in so many ways, it was they who breathed life into the methodological design.

Sai Ram seemed to best capture the sentiments of his classmates when he said, “from this project we’ve gained valuable experience.  It has given us good understanding in geography as it also talks about map reading skills and other chapters, such as the one on ‘clean and green environment’.  After this project, my classmates are more caring towards the environment.  Although there’s always been groupwork in our school, we now have more confidence to be the group leader and to play the various other roles” (Ram, personal communication, April 13, 2005).

As for their geography teacher, “many of my students had difficulty in answering structured essay questions in geography.  Not only did they have difficulty in coming up with different viewpoints, they also had difficulty in coming to a consensus based on these different viewpoints.  One year on, it is clear that they have gained a better understanding of the subject matter. I see an improvement in their ability to answer questions, not only in social studies but also in geography.  My students gained a deeper understanding of the issues, and they have been able to better analyse them as well.  Further, and most hearteningly, I have seen them apply the principles of perspective appreciation and consensus building in their daily life” (Zainudin, personal communication, April 13, 2005).  

* Expressed in terms more familiar to the geographies of the West, the Mayan lady was actually asking “is the hot water in the tap that would lie in the uphill (southerly) direction if I were at home?”

<- 7.5 The Role of Messaging in Augmenting Environmental Understanding