6.5 Summative discussion By way of summary, the narrative presented in this chapter has corroborated the findings from Chapter Five, in that it makes the point of the noticeability of artificial structures – particularly axial lines and buildings – in local environments, from the point of view of adolescent Singaporeans. Evidence for this surfaces in the transcripts of the pre- and post-test interviews, in the photographic evidence used during the various field tasks, and in the sketch maps produced by the students.
Further, there is evidence to indicate that during the complex exchanges which characterize cooperative learning environments, the absolute number of exchanges is sometimes less important than the nature and quality of the communication. As iterated in the preceding chapter, this assertion is supported by the work of others (such as Daniel and Denis, 1998, 2004; Denis, 1997; Denis et al., 1999; Bidwell, 2004). Thus, despite sending messages less frequently than Leonard and Samuel had done during the orienteering task (one message every 3.9 minutes compared to once every 2.5 minutes respectively), a greater proportion (42 percent compared to 28 percent) of the messages that Siti and Hashwin sent employed allocentric Frames of Reference to complement egocentric Frames. This being the case, not only were Siti and Hashwin able to complete the orienteering task successfully, but they were also able to do so in a marginally shorter period of time – over the same route – as Leonard and Samuel.
Another salient finding from the case presented in this chapter that is worth repeating is that the transcript of the exchange (Figure 23) between the Principal Investigator and Munira, during her pre-test, suggests to geography teachers that novice geographers do bring some very basic misconceptions with them, with regards what maps are and how they represent spatial information. This is despite the fact that in the nation-wide geography curriculum in Singapore, Munira would have attended lessons focusing explicitly on maps and map-reading, not only in her present school, but also during her six years of primary education.
This is an important point, and is one which teachers of geography, and particularly of map-skills, should take note of. When thinking of scaffolds, teachers are more accustomed to neo-Vygotskyian notions of scaffolded instruction (Cazden, 1979) – indeed the discourse categories (such as task frames, interactional scaffolds and clarifications) which emerged from the analysis of messaging transcripts in the present study serve to reinforce this approach.
However, the three cases presented in this chapter and Chapter Five suggest to us that in addition to discourse scaffolds, effective geography lessons should also be characterized by spatial scaffolds as well. That is to say, the cases have suggested how the communication of inherently spatial data – such as bearing, distance and scale – can only make sense to novice geographers within the appropriate Frames of Reference. Put another way, notions of ‘left’ and ‘right’, and ‘front’ and ‘back’, which novice geographers bring to the map-skills lesson or activity make little or no sense without first predicating them in a larger framework of relative or absolute spatial references.
In the final chapter of this thesis, the research questions will be revisited in the light of all the preceding discussions on the quantitative and qualitative data collected.
<- 6.4 Perspectives task -> 7 Conclusion | 
