Paper 3: Fieldwork

Question 1

PHYSICAL: what is the aim of your fieldwork investigation?

Answer 1

To investigate the changes downstream in the river at Carding Mill Valley

Question 2

PHYSICAL: describe one method of data collection.

Answer 2

• Choose 10 sites along the river by stratified sampling, where you think you will see downstream change (such as after tributaries)
• On each site, measure a 10m stretch of river
• Drop a dog biscuit in at the start of this stretch and start a stopwatch
• Stop the stopwatch when the biscuit reaches the end of the 10m stretch
• Repeat this measurement three times and take the mean time

Question 3

PHYSICAL: why was this method of data collection suitable?

Answer 3

• Simple
• Fast
• Cheap
• Environmentally friendly

Question 4

PHYSICAL: how could you improve your method of data collection?

Answer 4

• Use a flow meter (this was too expensive and the water often too shallow)

Question 5

PHYSICAL: what method of data presentation was used and why?

Answer 5

• Scatter graph with line of best fit – distance downstream agains velocity
• Both variables continuous
• Easy to interpret
• We are trying to observe a trend
• Line of best fit can overlook anomalies, however

Question 6

PHYSICAL: how valid were your results?

Answer 6

• Stratified sampling could lead to biased choices of sites (we only measured the upper course), so this could be unrepresentative of how the Carding Mill Valley river changes as a whole – less valid
• Suitable variables such as velocity change and discharge were measured to assess change, leading to more valid conclusions

Question 7

PHYSICAL: how reliable were your results?

Answer 7

• The results were not all taken at the same time – they are not repeatable (external factors could’ve changed between readings) – less reliable
• The method was simple, so human error was minimised – more reliable

Question 8

HUMAN: what is the aim of this fieldwork investigation?

Answer 8

To investigate the redevelopment of inner city Birmingham

Question 9

HUMAN: describe one method of data collection.

Answer 9

• Use stratified sampling to choose 4 sites – 3 redeveloped, 1 not
• For each site, stand in a random location and rate the environment on 12 qualities (such as air pollution, greenery, noise pollution and litter) on a bi-polar scale of -2 to 2.

Question 10

HUMAN: why was this method of data collection suitable?

Answer 10

• Quick
• Cheap
• Simple

Question 11

HUMAN: how could you improve your method of data collection?

Answer 11

• Use instrumental measures of environmental quality, such as to detect pollution levels, or to use a sound level meter for noise pollution.

Question 12

HUMAN: what method of data presentation was used and why?

Answer 12

• Radar diagrams
• It allows easy comparison of multivariate data – multiple quantitative pieces of data (bipolar ratings) of multiple places on the same diagram
• Easy visual comparisons

Question 13

HUMAN: how valid were your results?

Answer 13

• Only one non-redeveloped site was chosen, meaning it could not be representative of all non-redeveloped areas of inner city Birmingham
• By using stratified sampling, we made sure we looked at good examples of redeveloped sites and non-redeveloped sites to make our data as representative as possible of our aim, despite the small sample size
• We only stood in one spot per location, so this may be unrepresentative of the location as a whole and decrease validity

Question 14

HUMAN: how reliable were your results?

Answer 14

• Since the measurements were subjective, our results could be less reliable, as different people doing the same experiment could get different results
• The assessments were done at slightly different times of the day for each location – this makes them less reliable