key skills in environmental management Flashcards
What are the four stages of investigation?
1.Planning the investigation
2. identifying the limitations of the methods that were used and suggesting possible improvements
3. presenting reasoned explanations for phenomena, patterns, and relationships that you have observed in your data.
4. making reasoned judgments and reaching conclusions based on qualitative and quantitative information.
What is aim?
Aim is the purpose of your investigation.
What is hypothesis?
A hypothesis is a statement based on the topic of your investigation.It’s a prediction that proposes a relationship between two variables.
What are the two variables?
And define them.
Independent variable independent variable is the variable that is not changed by the other variable and it is only deliberately changed.
Dependent variable is the variable you are measuring and is changed when you change the independent variable.
What are the two types of hypothesis?
Alternative hypothesis and null hypothesis.
1. Null hypothesis states that there is not a relationship between two variables and one variable is not affected by the other. The results are due to chance and are not significant in supporting the aim of the investigation.
2. Alternative hypothesis or experimental hypothesis states that there is a relationship between the two variables. The results are not by chance and are significant in terms of supporting the aim of the investigation.
What are the two types of data?
Qualitative and quantitative.
Qualitative data is non-numerical and descriptive.
Quantitative data is of two types- discrete and continuous.
What is discrete and continuous type of data?
Discrete data has finite numbers with possible values and can only take whole numbers. Continuous data has unfinite numbers can take any value.
What are primary and secondary data?
Primary data is collected by you or the group in an investigation.
Secondary data is collected by people who are unconnected with the investigation but the data is relevant and useful and can be taken from newspapers, internet, and magazines or books or past investigations.
What is sampling?
Sampling is a representative of the whole Target population it is a part of the target population. The target population is the subset of people to whom the conclusions of the investigation will be applied to.
What are the three ways of sampling?
Point sampling, line sampling, and area or quadrant sampling. Point sampling is done at an exact point. line sampling is done along a transect or a line. Area or quadrat sampling is when data is collected within quadrants.
What are the three methods of sampling?
Random sampling is when you choose the sites for sampling randomly using random numbers. you can generate that using a calculator or you can use a table and we use random sampling to avoid bias. Systematic sampling - the sample points are are selected using an order or a pattern. Stratified sampling is when a population is divided up into two groups.
What is pilot survey?
Pilot survey is a trial run officer survey to find out any problems with the survey or to make possible improvements.
What is risk assessment?
It’s important to be aware of potential health and safety issues relating to the equipment you are using it’s important to check the equipment before using it or if necessary calibrate it. Calibrating is to check and make necessary adjustments to the equipment to increase its accuracy.
What are some limitations that you may encounter to your methods.
- The quantity and quality of data collected will be determined by the available resources such as time money equipment ICT public transport and the number of people available to collect the data.
- It’s also not better to rely on other people to gather data it it adds a random element to the investigation so it’s better if the same individual does the investigation.
- The choice of sampling in terms of type and size and you should choose a suitable sampling method at your planning stage.
- Conditions in which data is collected such as weather when connecting a questionnaire must be considered timing and location of data collection can also affect results ask and the sample size so these factors should be considered too.
- Using digital equipment is better than visually estimating sediment shape and size it’s helps you to collect more objective information and limit human error.
- If the method involves the use of measuring equipment ensure that this is calibrated before the investigation starts by repeating the measurements or using other piece of equipment you can increase the reliability of your results.
- if you use internet for data collection you must consider whether with the websites you are using our biased or if the information is inaccurate or outdated government websites are usually better at providing information and they provide reliable data.
What are the different types of graphs?
Line graph, bar graph, histogram, by graph, and scatter graph.
