An Analysis of Students' Photos of the Novelty Space on a Field Trip

Abstract

This article explores the concept of “novelty space” proposed by Orion and Hofstein (1994) and analyzes U.S. undergraduate students' photographs taken during a 9-week educational field trip. The original novelty space was composed of geographic, psychological, and cognitive domains. This study proposes to incorporate social novelty space as part of the field trip. The self-administered photo spreadsheets, interviews, and survey were completed by student participants. The findings suggest that photographs serve as a behavioral proxy for geographic and cognitive domains but were less evident for psychological and social novelty spaces.

KEYWORDS:

• behavior proxy
• field trips
• novelty space
• photographs
• tourism
• travel