P3 - Human Fieldwork - Betws-Y-Coed

Question 1

What is the title of your human fieldwork enquiry:

Answer 1

To investigate the economic impacts of tourism in Betws-Y-Coed

Question 2

What is the hypothesis of your human fieldwork enquiry:

Answer 2

Tourism has a positive economic impact on Betws-Y-Coed

Question 3

Outline the purpose of your fieldwork enquiry:

Answer 3

Aim: to investigate the economic impacts of tourism in Betws-Y-Coed

• positive or negative economic impacts
• which areas of town has the greatest benefit from tourism

Question 4

Outline the underlying theory which formed the basis of your fieldwork enquiry:

Answer 4

Focused on the theory that tourism should cause positive economic impacts

• positive: tourists bring money into the area and spend it at local shops which provides jobs for local people
• negative: tourism jobs are often seasonal and low paid

Question 5

Evaluate the factors which needed to be considered when selecting a suitable question for your fieldwork:

Answer 5

• had to be able to get there and back in one school day (Snowdonia was within one hour of school)
• had to be part of what we were studying as part of our GCSE (studied glaciated landscapes and the effect of tourism on it)
• limited fieldwork equipment, so needed to pick a title which didn’t require investigation using specialist equipment

Question 6

Describe the advantages of your chosen location for the fieldwork enquiry:

Answer 6

• one hour away from chester, so we spent lots of time collecting data (bigger sample size, more reliable results)
• Betws-Y-Coed accessed by the A5, could get to the site easily and leave it quickly in case of an emergency (had facilities such as toilets, emergency phone box)

Question 7

Outline the strategies you used to minimise risk during your fieldwork investigation:

Answer 7

• always remained in a group of 4, operated a ‘buddy’ system and we all had a map of the town to navigate
• had first aid kit and mobile phones, clothes had to be appropriate for the cold or wet weather (reduce the risk of hypothermia)
• walking along pavements, suitable footwear to avoid slips, trips and falls

Question 8

Outline one method that you used for the data collection of primary data:

Answer 8

-completed a questionnaire, we stood at the side of the pavement and used a systematic sample of every third person to answer our questionnaire (we collated our results so when we got back to school we had 40 sets of data)

Question 9

Outline one of the limitations of a data method collection used in your fieldwork investigation:

Answer 9

-collected a land use survey which was subjective (different people thought buildings were used for locals, tourists or both), only looked at the land use of the ground floor which may have affected the results as upper floors may have been used for locals

Question 10

Outline one method that you used for the data collection of secondary data:

Answer 10

-used ‘Street check’ website, we went on it to find out how many people were employed, self employed and unemployed in the area, we also looked at the main types of employment in the area

Question 11

What is qualitative data which you collected for your investigation?

Answer 11

Qualitative data involves collecting opinions, perspective, thoughts and feelings (such as we completed a questionnaire asking people for their opinions on the economic impacts of tourism)

Question 12

What is quantitative data which you collected for your investigation?

Answer 12

Quantitative data is in numerical form, it’s objective in nature (such as we counted the number of buildings that were used for locals and the number that were for tourists)

Question 13

Outline how you recorded your data:

Answer 13

• recorded on a separate piece of paper for each of the people we asked the questionnaire to
• spaces to write down peoples opinion on a 1 to 5 scale
• used a Goad map which gave us a detailed street map showing individual buildings, making data collection easier and more accurate

Question 14

Outline a sampling technique you used:

Answer 14

-systematic sampling for the questionnaires, taking the sample from a regular interval (asked every third person)

Question 15

With reference to one technique you chose to present data in your enquiry, justify the choice of this technique:

Answer 15

presented the opinions using radar charts

• see visually what the most dominant opinion was because the line was extended out the most (so quick to draw conclusions from)
• raw data was used so you could read of the chart the exact number of people who rated statement in certain ways

present the land use data as a pie chart

Question 16

Outline one technique of data presentation which you used:

Answer 16

-pie charts, we tallied up the total number of buildings for tourists, locals and both (worked out percentages) and then shaded the areas of the pie chart and colour coded it with a key

Question 17

Evaluate how effective one of your data presentation techniques was:

Answer 17

presented the data for how much money tourists spent as a divided bar chart

• clearly see the dominant value, easy to see the least dominant value
• hard to read of exact scores as the bar chart uses percentages so you couldn’t see the raw data

Question 18

Outline one technique you used to analyse your data:

Answer 18

-calculated percentage values for land use of the buildings (explain how you’d do that)

Question 19

Justify one technique you used to analyse your data:

Answer 19

• calculated land use percentages
• showed us the most dominant type of land use
• meant we were able to construct a pie chart easily

Question 20

Outline how your different data sets were linked:

Answer 20

• data on the percentage of people employed in the tourist industry was linked to the percentage of buildings being used for tourism
• around 55% of land use was for tourism and about 60% of people were employed in that sector

Question 21

To what extent did your fieldwork conclusions match the geographical theory on which your investigation was based?

Answer 21

• land use survey showed 55% of buildings were used solely for tourism (many people can make a living off tourism)
• 95% of people who we asked in our questionnaire believed tourism provided lots of jobs
• people weren’t spending as much money as we expected though

Question 22

Outline the conclusion of your fieldwork:

Answer 22

-tourism has a positive economic impact of Betws-Y-Coed (support with some facts)

Question 23

Evaluate your data collection methods:

Answer 23

• questionnaire could have done with a larger sample size, but the systematic sampling was effective (asking every third person)
• some people may have not given their true feelings or opinions on the economic impacts of tourism due to the interview effect
• used a Goad map meaning we were able to find out the land use for each building but we only did the ground floor

Question 24

Explain how your fieldwork enquiry could have been improved:

Answer 24

• ask more people to do our questionnaire (to make the results more reliable)
• collected our data on a Thursday in October, so we could go back in another season to get more of a better representation
• take photographs and annotate them to remind us of what the area was like
• complete more surveys ourselves so we don’t have to rely on opinions (for example we could compare the price of bread and milk)

Question 25

Suggest further research opportunities arising from the conclusion of your fieldwork:

Answer 25

-could do a price comparison of everyday goods such as milk and bread in Betws-Y-Coed in comparison to a non-tourism area