Interpretation Skills

Question 1

What are the disadvantages of spearmans rank?

Answer 1

• Only had time to visit 3 sites- this technique needs at least 10 pairs of data to be reliable
• No more than 30 pairs of data can be used
• If data is the same then too many tied can interfere with validity
• It gives a level of confidence, not certainty

Question 2

What is meant by significance of a result?

Answer 2

• This means to what extent are you confident that a relationship exists between pairs of data
• If your answer lies below 95% confidence, the relationship is rejected.

Question 3

What do we mean by anomalies?

Answer 3

This means a piece of data doesn’t fit the general trend of the rest of the data.

• Site 6 had higher velocity due to channelisation at Malton
• Site 2 had lower velocity than site 1 because river was wider

Question 4

What are the advantages of spear mans rank?

Answer 4

• It provides a numerical value that summarises the degree of correlation between 2 variables
• Not open to personal interpretation
• Test can be done with any data sets containing raw figures

Question 5

What are the issues of Secondary Data in the investigation?

Answer 5

• Data may not have been collected in the same manor or time of year as we did- also it might not have been collected accurately
• Secondary data can be useful to enhance understanding, such as examining OS maps at the sites we visited to see if wider links can be made with our results

Question 6

How else could we have interpreted our findings?

Answer 6

SCATTER GRAPH WITH LINE OF BEST FIT

Question 7

Advantages of scatter graph with line of best fit

Answer 7

• Line of best fit gives good visual indicator of what type of relationship exists
• Anomalies can be highlighted and can provide basis for further investigations

Question 8

Disadvantages of scatter graph with line of best fit

Answer 8

• Plotting line of best fit can be difficult to do with a wide spread of data plots
• It doesn’t give you to what degree a relationship exists