3.2.3 Orienteering task

This comprised the following steps:
•    Students were taken in groups of four to the fieldsite, which was typically a residential neighbourhood.  They were then divided into pairs, and each pair was assigned a chaperone, whose duty it was to ensure the safety of the students while in the field.  Each pair was also given a Nokia 6600 camera phone, which was capable of taking photographs and sending them as picture-messages to the other phone by means of the GPRS network.
•    Both pairs of students were brought to a residential or suburban neighbourhood; Pair A proceeded to navigate to a series of checkpoints, using conventional means (following printed clues).  Along the way, the team members were to keep a pictorial record of any significant landmarks or exemplars of land-use;
•    Once sufficient time had elapsed (usually fifteen minutes), Pair B was permitted to navigate to the first checkpoint.  The only means Pair B had at its disposal was to engage in an exchange of text- and picture-messaging with Pair A about the correct route to follow.  The pictures which were sent were 208 x 156 pixels in size.  Pair B’s chaperone was given strict instructions not to issue any prompts or hints, regardless of how long it took the students to locate (and verify) each checkpoint.  The exchange of messages was saved for subsequent examination.  Further, just like Pair A, Pair B was also to keep a pictorial record of significant landmarks or exemplars of land-use along the route;
•    The steps were repeated for additional checkpoints, time permitting.  In general, students were given ninety minutes to complete the task, and routes varied from between 1.6 km to 2 km in length.
•    Student performance was analysed in terms of the time taken to complete the route, as well as in terms of deviation from the stipulated route.

The orienteering task, as described above, represented an attempt to hold constant the ‘landmarks’ (that is, the checkpoints) which punctuate the socially-constructed vista space.  This was so that the variable to be analysed would be more explicitly the nature of the discourse itself, which the students engaged in.  That is to say, the orienteering task represented an attempt to answer the question “how do adolescents communicate spatial-orientational information to each other?”

    In this thesis, the scaffolding between peers which Rogoff (1984, 1990, 1993, 1995) has highlighted forms the basis of much of the analysis of the messaging exchanges between the participants.  In particular, the exchanges are analysed for insights into the dialogic devices which adolescents use to communicate their perceptions of meaningful geographic elements and spatial relationships to their peers, as well as how these same elements and relationships are used to facilitate navigation and wayfinding in unfamiliar environments, through the process of guided participation.

    Indeed, conceived in this way, one potentially valuable contribution of this thesis to the burgeoning body of research on Vygotskyian-inspired learning interventions would be the extent to which the individual learner’s operation within the ZPD is not only mediated socially, but is, in fact, mediated spatially and geographically as well.

    That is to say, to what extent do the spatial arrangements and relationships between the physical and man-made elements and features of one’s local environment contribute to one’s developing understanding of what it means to think and operate geographically?  

<- 3.2.2 Pre- and Post-tests          -> 3.2.4 Perspectives task