The Influence of Age and Gender on Primary Navigation Strategies

Navigation is a subject that people experience everywhere and in every day of their lives. Navigation skills can be necessary in the grocery store, when locating items in their cupboards, while travelling, or even when trying to find a place to sit in a room. Most definitions of navigation and its uses in everyday life are related to spatial navigation. Still, even that, as defined by multiple researchers, can be divided into three main types of strategies: allocentric, egocentric, and balanced navigation strategies. There has been extensive research on navigation, navigation strategies, and how the navigation strategy used by an individual can influence their navigation efficiency. However, there is a lack of evidence-based research on the possible influence of instructions tailored to someone’s primary navigation strategy on their navigation abilities. Before this topic can be studied, it is essential to examine the influence of gender and age on the primary navigation strategy...Show moreNavigation is a subject that people experience everywhere and in every day of their lives. Navigation skills can be necessary in the grocery store, when locating items in their cupboards, while travelling, or even when trying to find a place to sit in a room. Most definitions of navigation and its uses in everyday life are related to spatial navigation. Still, even that, as defined by multiple researchers, can be divided into three main types of strategies: allocentric, egocentric, and balanced navigation strategies. There has been extensive research on navigation, navigation strategies, and how the navigation strategy used by an individual can influence their navigation efficiency. However, there is a lack of evidence-based research on the possible influence of instructions tailored to someone’s primary navigation strategy on their navigation abilities. Before this topic can be studied, it is essential to examine the influence of gender and age on the primary navigation strategy employed, as well as to determine if the combined knowledge of age and gender can predict which navigation strategy a person is likely to use. The aim of the paper is to see if it would be possible to predict which of the three navigation strategies someone is likely to use as their primary navigation strategy based on age, gender and both age and gender at the same time. Based on a literature search, the hypotheses are as follows: men are more likely to have an allocentric navigation strategy as their main strategy compared to women; younger people are more likely to use an allocentric navigation strategy compared to older people who will lean more towards egocentric or balanced strategies; women will show a decrease in favoring allocentric strategies at a younger age than men and the decline will be linear. The data collection was done through an online test with a large sample of Dutch-speaking participants. The variable 'age' is a continuous variable, ranging from 8 to 95 years old. A total of 5294 participants were included in the study, with 62.9 percent of them identifying as female, 36.8 percent as male and 0.3 percent as ‘other’. To study the effect of age on navigation strategy, a One-Way ANOVA will be used, and the relationship between gender and primary navigation strategy will be examined with a Chi-square test of Independence. The hypothesis that age and gender combined influence the primary navigation strategy will be tested using a multinomial logistic regression, and looking into the interaction effect between age and gender on navigation strategy. No significant results were found, which, in relation to previous studies, is unexpected and heightens the need to research this topic further. If a significant result can be found to any of these questions, navigation help and instructions could be adapted to what is likely to help the person navigate more effectively; this could lead to a reduction in spatial anxiety for many people. For future research, it would be beneficial to keep the ecological validity in mind while studying this topic to increase the potential benefits of the study. An example of how this could be done would be to repeat the online test used in this paper, but use images of multiple existing places in the world instead of a Mars-like landscape. Another way this could be achieved would be to translate the test into different languages, not just Dutch, to make it more open to other cultures and thus more generalisable.Show less

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The Influence of Age and Gender on Primary Navigation Strategies