GEOGRAPHY FIELDWORK SKILLS
What is a skill?- It is the ability to do something well.
What is fieldwork?- It is the practical work conducted by a researcher (you) in the
natural environment, rather than in a laboratory or office.
Thus, as a Geographer you will at some point carry out fieldwork studies in which
certain skills will enable you to obtain and interpret information from both the human
and natural environment.
What skills are needed in fieldwork?
1.
2.
3.
4.
Techniques for observing and collecting data.
Techniques for organising and presenting data.
Analysing and interpreting data.
Judgement and decision making (conclusion and evaluation).
Before you choose your fieldwork, you have to decide if you live in a suitable study
location. For example, it is no use trying to do a piece of fieldwork on rivers, if you live
in the middle of a desert. Before starting your fieldwork, you should also think about
how you can carry out the fieldwork safely and definitely carry out a risk assessment.
You can make your fieldwork safer by doing the following:
Safety measures
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The students should wear protective clothes to keep them from harsh weather
conditions, for example, waterproof jacket, umbrella, hat, sun cream etc.
Protective footwear such as wellingtons/waders should be worn before
stepping into river or into the field.
Always carry out fieldwork in groups.
Always tell an adult or teacher where you are carrying out fieldwork.
Always carry a mobile phone with you.
Never do fieldwork near a river or the sea without an adult or teacher and
without them checking that it is safe.
Carry out fieldwork in day light and wear reflective clothes.
Check that your study area is safe.
Sunscreen and sunhats reduce cases of sunburns caused by sun`s rays.
Do not display valuables making you more vulnerable to crime e.g., if you have
a camera or a phone keep it out of sight.
Further detail on Skills for Paper 3 and 4
1. Formulating aims and hypotheses:
Candidates should be familiar with hypotheses as statements that form the
basis of Fieldwork assignments. The hypotheses may investigate a
geographical concept e.g. ‘A CBD has the highest concentration of comparison
shops. Collecting relevant data, analysis and drawing conclusions using the
data as evidence can test these.
Hypothesis: A hypothesis is a prediction or statement that you make before
your data collection (is a statement that predicts the outcome before data
collection is done in the field).
Data collection is done to prove OR disprove the hypothesis. This is only done
on the basis of information gathered. A piece of fieldwork may have more than
one hypothesis and it does not matter if you prove or disprove it.
A hypothesis should always be SMART. If your hypotheses are not SMART,
then it can be impossible to prove or disprove them.
S = Specific
M = Measurable
A = Achievable
R = Realistic
T = Time-related
Example of hypothesis
Hypothesis 1: Temperatures increase as atmospheric pressure rises and
decrease as atmospheric pressure falls.
Hypothesis 2: There is a relationship between atmospheric pressure and daily
rainfall totals.
2. Data collection
Whenever you are doing data collection, the aim is to be as objective as
possible. Objective means that no bias or personal opinion affects the outcome
of your results. The opposite to be objective is being subjective. Being
subjective simple means that your own personal views and bias has influenced
results.
Objective data: This is when data collection is not influenced by people's
personal opinion.
Subjective data: This is when your personal opinion has an influence on the
outcome of the data collection. Sometimes personal opinion, likes, and dislikes
may find their way into the investigation and result in biased information.
Primary data: Any data that is personally collected by you (this is information
collected by the students themselves first-hand), this does not mean
collecting off the internet. Primary data may include traffic counts, pedestrian
counts, environmental indexes, questionnaires, or land use surveys.
Secondary data: Any data that has been collected by someone else (is data
obtained from published sources collected by others). Secondary data
collection maybe found in books, on the internet, in academic journals,
newspapers etc. Probably the most useful secondary data is census data.
Census: is the enumeration of people in a country. The census survey is
carried out by nearly all countries every 10 years. The census is a very detailed
survey that is compulsory for everyone to fill in. It includes a lot of data including
family size, income, house size and car ownership.
Advantages of Primary data
Disadvantages of Primary data
• It is up to date (current)
• The data may include some
personal bias.
• You know how the data has been
collected i.e., what technique was
• Data collection can be time
used to collect the data.
consuming.
• It only includes data that is
• It can be expensive to travel to
relevant to your fieldwork.
places to collect data.
• It only covers your study area.
• It is hard to study temporal
changes.
• It is collected in the format that
you want
• Some data might be unavailable
or too dangerous to collect.
• Only possible to cover a small
area.
Advantages of Secondary Data
Disadvantages of Secondary data
• You can study temporal changes
• It is out of date, especially if it has
e.g., how population has changed
been printed in a book.
over a number of years.
• There might more information
• It can be quicker to obtain,
than you need.
especially if the data is on the
• The information may include a
internet.
larger area than your study area.
• A larger area can be studied e.g.,
• You may not know how the data
the whole province or a country.
was collected and who collected
• It may include data that you
the data.
cannot obtain personally e.g.,
• The data might be in the wrong
salaries
format e.g., in a graph and not raw
figures.
Quantitative data: This is any data that involves figures (the specific data collected
in numerical form). Quantitative data is very easy to present and analyse. Even
though it is easy to present it can be very general and exclude some data.
Qualitative data: This is more written data or even photographs or pictures. It is
descriptive and is in word form. It tends to be individual and personal, but it can be
very hard to present and analyse. Qualitative data often comes about as the results of
interviews with open-ended questions.
Pilot Survey: This is basically a test that you carry out before your data collection. It
is very important that you test your data collection forms to ensure that you ask all the
right questions, and your collection forms contain all the right categories. It is too
expensive and too time consuming to go and collect data a second time if you missed
it the first time.