Every card in Fieldwork and skills, Year 11: issue evaluation, planning an enquiry and collecting data
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- How many weeks before the Paper 3 exam does AQA release the issue evaluation resource booklet? (number only)
12
HintIt is about the length of one school term.
WhyThe pre-release booklet holds maps, graphs, photographs, data and the views of different groups about one real issue. Schools work through it in the weeks before Paper 3 (Geographical applications). You cannot take your own copy into the exam: you are handed a clean one. The questions themselves stay unseen.
- A person or group with an interest in a decision, because it will affect them or because they can influence it
A stakeholder
HintThink of someone who has something to win or lose.
WhyAn issue such as a new road or a flood scheme affects residents, businesses, the council and environmental groups in different ways, so they hold different views. The booklet often quotes them. A strong answer shows who gains, who loses, and why their views conflict.
- In the final issue evaluation question you choose one option and justify it. As well as the strengths of your choice, what should you say about the options you rejected?
Why they are weaker
HintA good decision shows that the alternatives were weighed, not ignored.
WhyThere is no single right option: marks are for the quality of the case. Use evidence from the booklet and your own knowledge to show the benefits of your choice for people and the environment, admit its drawbacks, and show that the alternatives have bigger costs or smaller benefits.
- A fieldwork risk assessment names each hazard and rates how likely and how serious the harm could be. Which further entry for each hazard is the one that actually makes the trip safer?
How the risk will be reduced
HintListing a danger is pointless unless you then act on it.
WhyFor example: hazard, slipping on wet rocks; likelihood, medium; action, wear boots with good grip and keep away from the steepest bank. These actions are often called control measures. AQA expects you to know the risks of both your physical and your human enquiry and how each was cut.
- In a risk assessment, a ____ is anything that could cause harm, and the ____ is how likely it is to cause harm and how serious that harm would be.
hazard; risk
HintDeep water is one of these; the chance of someone falling in is the other.
WhyThe two words are not the same. A fast road beside a survey site is always dangerous in itself, but the chance of harm is low if pupils stand well back behind a barrier. Fieldwork planning cannot always remove the danger; where it cannot, it lowers the chance and the seriousness of harm.
- An enquiry asks how a river's channel changes from source to mouth. All ten measuring sites are planned within the last 500 metres of a 20 km river. What is wrong with this choice of sites?
They cover only one short stretch, so change along the river cannot be seen
HintCompare where the question looks and where the tape measures would be.
WhyThe places where data is collected must match the question. To show change downstream, sites need to be spread from the upper course to the lower course. Access and safety limit the choice too, and a plan should say so. Ten sites bunched together would only show what one part of the river is like.
- A pupil proposes the enquiry question "How is climate change affecting every river in the UK?" for one day of fieldwork. What is the main reason it is unsuitable?
It is far too large to collect data for in one day
HintThink about how many places a class could reach before the coach leaves.
WhyA suitable question is narrow enough to answer with data you can collect yourself, safely, in the time and with the equipment you have. It should also be clearly geographical and linked to something you have studied. "Does this river get wider downstream?" can be tested in a day; a question about every river over decades cannot.
- An urban enquiry expects land use to change with distance from the town centre. Why should the plan set out the geographical theory behind the enquiry before any data is collected?
So the results can be compared with what the theory predicts
HintA forecast is only useful if you later check it.
WhyThe theory or model gives the enquiry its expected pattern, and so its hypothesis. It also shows which data is worth collecting. Afterwards you can say whether the place fits the model, and explain why it does or does not. AQA asks you to know the theory or concept behind each of your two enquiries.
- A pupil lays a tape up a beach and measures the pebbles at every 10 metres along it. What is this sampling method called? (one word)
systematic
HintThe points are fixed by a regular rule, not by chance.
WhyRegular intervals are quick to set out and make sure the whole line is covered. The interval can be in distance (every 10 m), in time (every half hour) or in order (every tenth person). The weakness is that not every point has an equal chance of being picked, and a regular gap may happen to match, or miss, a pattern in the place.
- A town has 60% of its residents north of the river and 40% south of it. A pupil plans 50 questionnaires and wants a stratified sample that matches the town. How many questionnaires should be done north of the river? (number only)
30
HintEach area gets its fair share of the total.
Why60% of 50 = 0.6 × 50 = 30, leaving 20 for the south. Stratified sampling splits the population into groups of known size and samples each group in proportion. Within each group the people can still be picked at random or at regular intervals. It only works if the sizes of the groups are known.
- What is the main advantage of choosing sample points with random numbers instead of picking the spots yourself?
It avoids bias
HintPeople tend to choose the easy, dry or interesting places.
WhyIn random sampling every point or person has an equal chance of being chosen, so the collector's preferences cannot shape the results. The Royal Geographical Society calls it the least biased method. Its weakness is that chance may leave parts of the study area unsampled, especially with a small sample.
- Data that you collect yourself, first-hand, during your own fieldwork
Primary data
HintThe word also describes the first stage of schooling.
WhyMeasurements, counts, questionnaires, photographs and field sketches made by you are all of this kind. Data that someone else collected and published, such as census figures, an old map or a flood record, is secondary. AQA requires both of your enquiries to use data of the first-hand kind.
- Field sketches, photographs and residents' comments are ____ data: they describe a place in words and images rather than in numbers.
qualitative
HintIt records what a place is like, not how much or how many.
WhyCounts and measurements are quantitative: they can be graphed and averaged. Descriptions, opinions and images capture things numbers miss, such as how a place feels. They are harder to compare, so geographers often turn them into numbers, for example by scoring a street from 1 to 5.
1★ GCSE-GEOG-FIE-0019
2★ GCSE-GEOG-FIE-0020
3★ GCSE-GEOG-FIE-0021
4★ GCSE-GEOG-FIE-0022
5★ GCSE-GEOG-FIE-0023
6★ GCSE-GEOG-FIE-0024
7★ GCSE-GEOG-FIE-0025
8★ GCSE-GEOG-FIE-0026
9★ GCSE-GEOG-FIE-0027
10★ GCSE-GEOG-FIE-0028
11★ GCSE-GEOG-FIE-0029
12★ GCSE-GEOG-FIE-0030
13★ GCSE-GEOG-FIE-0031
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