A postdigital lens on outdoor research

Postdigital research acknowledges a symbiotic meaning for its social, cultural and technological components, rejecting technology alone as deterministic and instrumental. Pre-pandemic, much research in outdoor education focused on interactions with participants, leaders, stakeholders or policymakers, with technology as a means of data analysis. The shift to virtual environments due to the COVID-19 pandemic forced researchers to gather data virtually and via social media platforms. Evidence gathered from a small sample of higher education undergraduate neophyte researchers (n = 27) illustrates how they used their knowledge of familiar technologies to help them develop as researchers, assemble meaningful data sets and analyse them for successful outcomes. In a postdigital age, experienced researchers should have the confidence to encourage their students to explore different and hybridised ways of collecting data that embrace the co-constituents of practice. This approach may permit an expansive conscientisation of outdoor research in which there is a development, strengthening and changing of human consciousness of digital potential.