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This padlet is to help you prepare for, plan and complete your independent investigation project.

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A Level Geography Independent Investigations FAQs for Students

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Royal Geographical Society - Guide to the NEA

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Royal Geographical Society - Guide to the NEA

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Investigation Planning with Worked Example

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Investigation Planning with Worked Example

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Investigation Planning and Worked Example

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Geographical Information Systems are a great source of secondary data to help find topics and places to investigate. No matter what your starting point, GIS can help you to choose a location, ask enquiry questions, and carry out contextualising research.

Using GIS to help you develop a question

There are several positions from which you might be starting out - whichever situation you are in you might find using maps and GIS data helps you identify and refine your question.

Your teacher has given you a fieldwork destination, or you are looking to complete your fieldwork locally

You know the general area you are visiting (e.g. Guildford). But you have not chosen the area(s) your question will focus on (e.g. North Street Market in Guildford)

You need to identify a theme that your question will focus on

It is time to do some contextualising research relating to your chosen theme and location.

The aim of contextualising research is to make sure you know enough about the location to generate sensible questions or hypotheses.

This contextualising research can help you avoid questions that will probably not work, like one of the examples below:

Asking a question about the success of regeneration in an area where no regeneration has taken place

Trying to assess the impact of a flood in a settlement with no history of flood events

Hypothesising that different soil types will affect infiltration rates in a catchment if only one soil type is present

All these sound like daft questions, but only when set in the context of some background knowledge.

Good questions or hypotheses will be based on geographical theory AND some relevant understanding of the location.

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Geographical Information Systems are a great source of secondary data to help find topics and places to investigate. No matter what your starting point, GIS can help you to choose a location, ask enquiry questions, and carry out contextualising research.

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Human and Physical Studies

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https://www.elsevier.com/connect/infographic-how-to-read-a-scientific-paper

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Professional fact-checkers—who make sure newspaper articles and magazine stories are correct before they’re published—say that looking outside the story is the real secret to success. Use these truth-telling tips to tell if what you’re reading is for real.

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Skip to main content

The census takes place every 10 years. It gives us a picture of all the people and households in England and Wales.

Census 2021 data

Find data for Census 2021.

Census releases

See what we've published, and our plans for the future.

Geography

Find Census 2021 data for different areas.

Census topics

Find census data, analysis and quality information using these topics.

If you need help, contact census customer services.

Scotland and Northern Ireland censuses

We are responsible for the census in England and Wales.

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Skip to main content The census takes place every 10 years. It gives us a picture of all the people and households in England and Wales. Find data for Census 2021. See what we've published, and our plans for the future. Find Census 2021 data for different areas.

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A wide range of appropriate data presentation techniques.

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Census Maps - Census 2021 data interactive, ONS

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Census maps is an interactive tool to explore Census 2021 data across England and Wales for different topics down to a neighbourhood level.

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THE SCIENCE OF WHERE ArcGIS Online for Schools The free and easy way to start teaching with GIS Discover More Sign Up THE SCIENCE OF WHERE Enhance your teaching with GIS Maps, apps and content for all exam boards Discover More Sign Up THE SCIENCE OF WHERE Improve your skills and confidence with GIS Training, [...]

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They divided the world into 3 metre
squares and gave each square a
unique combination of three words.
It’s the easiest way to find and share
exact locations.

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This is the what3words address for a 3 metre square location near Taibach, Neath Port Talbot.

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Find the Latitude and Longitude of a Location

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Find the Latitude and Longitude of a Location

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What is Latitude and Longitude?

Just like every actual house has its address (which includes the number, the name of the street, city, etc), every single point on the surface of earth can be specified by the latitude and longitude coordinates. Therefore, by using latitude and longitude we can specify virtually any point on earth.

The latitude has the symbol of phi, and it shows the angle between the straight line in the certain point and the equatorial plane. The latitude is specified by degrees, starting from 0° and ending up with 90° to both sides of the equator, making latitude Northern and Southern. The equator is the line with 0° latitude. The longitude has the symbol of lambda and is another angular coordinate defining the position of a point on a surface of earth. The longitude is defined as an angle pointing west or east from the Greenwich Meridian, which is taken as the Prime Meridian. The longitude can be defined maximum as 180° east from the Prime Meridian and 180° west from the Prime Meridian.

Both latitude and longitude are measured in degrees, which are in turn divided into minutes and seconds. For example, the tropical zone which is located to the south and to the north from the Equator is determined by the limits of 23°26'13.7'' S and 23°26'13.7'' N. Or. For example, the geographical coordinates of the mount Ngauruhoe in New Zealand, famous with its being the filming area for the Lord of the Rings movie, has the geographic coordinates of 39°09'24.6''S 175°37'55.8''E.

About Lat Long

Latlong.net is an online geographic tool that can be used to lookup latitude and longitude of a place, and get its coordinates on map. You can search for a place using a city's or town's name, as well as the name of special places, and the correct lat long coordinates will be shown at the bottom of the latitude longitude finder form. At that, the place you found will be displayed with the point marker centered on map. Also the gps coordinates will be displayed below the map.

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Lat long is a geographic tool which helps you to get latitude and longitude of a place or city and find gps coordinates on map, convert lat long, gps, dms and utm.

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A source for public sector data in Wales, providing a shared data platform to members of the public

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DataMapWales serves as a source for public sector data in Wales, providing a shared data platform to members of the public and public authorities.

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The MAGIC website provides authoritative geographic information about the natural environment from across government. The information covers rural, urban, coastal and marine environments across Great Britain. It is presented in an interactive map which can be explored using various mapping tools that are included.

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Statisical tests

Spearman's Rank Correlation Test

Spearman's Rank Correlation is a statistical test to test whether there is a significant relationship between two sets of data.

The Spearman's Rank Correlation test can only be used if there are at least 10 (ideally at least 15-20) pairs of data.

There are 3 steps to take when using the Spearman's Rank Correlation Test

Step 1. State the null hypothesis

There is no significant relationship between _______ and _______

Step 2. Calculate the Spearman's Rank Correlation Coefficient

\(r_s = 1-\frac{(6∑D^2)}{n(n^2-1)}\)

\(r_s\) = Spearman's Rank correlation coefficient
\(D\) = differences between ranks
\(n\) = number of pairs of measurements

Step 3. Test the significance of the result

Compare the value of \(r_s\) that you have calculated against the critical value for \(r_s\) at a confidence level of 95% / significance value of p = 0.05.

If \(r_s\) is equal to or above the critical value (p=0.05) the REJECT the null hypothesis. There is a SIGNIFICANT relationship between the 2 variables.

A positive sign for \(r_s\) indicates a significant positive relationship and a negative sign indicates a significant negative relationship.

If \(r_s\) (ignoring any sign) is less than the critical value, ACCEPT the null hypothesis. There is NO SIGNIFICANT relationship between the 2 variables.

Chi-squared test

Chi squared in a statistical test that is used either to test whether there is a significant difference, goodness of fit or an association between observed and expected values.

\(\chi^2 = ∑ \frac{(O-E)^2}{E}\)

The chi squared test can only be used if

the data are in the form of frequencies in a number of categories (i.e. nominal data)

there are more than 20 observations in total

the observations are independent: one observation does not affect another

There are 3 steps to take when using the chi squared test

Step 1. State the null hypothesis

There is no significant association between _______ and _______

Step 2. Calculate the chi squared statistic

\(\chi^2 = ∑ \frac{(O-E)^2}{E}\)

\(\chi^2\) = chi squared statistic

\(O\) = Observed values

\(E\) = Expected values

Step 3. Test the significance of the result

Compare your calculated value of \(\chi^2\) against the critical value for \(\chi^2\) at a confidence level of 95% / significance value of P = 0.05, and appropriate degrees of freedom.

\(\mathsf{Degrees\;of\;freedom = (number\;of\;rows\;- 1) \times (number\;of\;columns\;- 1)}\)

If Chi Squared is equal to or greater than the critical value REJECT the null hypothesis. There is a SIGNIFICANT difference between the observed and expected values.

If Chi Squared is less than the critical value, ACCEPT the null hypothesis. There is NO SIGNIFICANT difference between the observed and expected values.

Mann Whitney U test

Mann Whitney U is a statistical test that is used either to test whether there is a significant difference between the medians of two sets of data.

The Mann Whitney U test can only be used if there are at least 6 pairs of data. It does not require a normal distribution.

There are 3 steps to take when using the Mann Whitney U test

Step 1. State the null hypothesis

There is no significant difference between _______ and _______

Step 2. Calculate the Mann Whitney U statistic

\(U_1= n_1 \times n_2 + 0.5 n_2 (n_2 + 1)\;- ∑ R_2\) \(U_2 = n_1 \times n_2 + 0.5 n_1 (n_1 + 1)\;- ∑ R_1\)

\(n_1\) is the number of values of \(x_1\)
\(n_2\) is the number of values of \(x_2\)
\(R_1\) is the ranks given to \(x_1\)
\(R_2\) is the ranks given to \(x_2\)

Step 3. Test the significance of the result

Compare the value of U against the critical value for U at a confidence level of 95% / significance value of P = 0.05.

If U is equal to or smaller than the critical value (p=0.05) the REJECT the null hypothesis. There is a SIGNIFICANT difference between the 2 data sets.

If U is greater than the critical value, then ACCEPT the null hypothesis. There is NOT a significant difference between the 2 data sets.

Analysing qualitative data

Qualitative information (such as interview transcripts, photographs, creative writing and film) can be analysed objectively.

Frequency analysis

Frequency analysis identifies how often a particular theme occurs. For example, in a series of open-ended interviews about a city centre, 45% of the interviewees mentioned crime.

Thematic analysis

Thematic analysis helps you to look for recurring themes within your data. Coding is a useful technique of thematic analysis

Descriptive coding Read the response several times. Try to summarise each line with a label consisting of a single word or short phrase

Analytic coding Read your labels again. Try to group labels together into a few concepts

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Spearman's Rank Correlation is a statistical test to test whether there is a significant relationship between two sets of data. The Spearman's Rank Correlation test can only be used if there are at least 10 (ideally at least 15-20) pairs of data. There are 3 steps to take when using the Spearman's Rank Correlation Test Step 1.

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Drawing conclusions and evaluating - Geographical enquiry process - CCEA - GCSE Geography Revision - CCEA - BBC Bitesize

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Learn how to plan a fieldwork investigation. This guide gives you the skills to represent, analyse and interpret data and evaluate them for the exam.

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Writing the evaluation is the most difficult part of your enquiry. So one way to tackle the evaluation is to think about the different parts of your work in turn: methods, data collection, data analysis and conclusions.

Evaluating your methods

Be objective

Think about the frequency and timing of observations.

Have you taken enough samples to be representative?

How did you avoid bias?

For non-probability sampling, what are the limitations?

Did interviewees understand the questions?

How did you deal with non-responders?

Be critical

Be ethical

The best geographical investigations will consider the ethical implications at each stage.

How did you avoid damaging the environment?

How did you avoid causing offence or a nuisance?

Did you have consent to carry out observations?

Evaluating your data collection

Be objective

Consider the type of variables and whether the data follow a normal distribution.

Is every graph accurate?

Is your choice of measures of central tendency and dispersion appropriate for the type of data?

Be critical

Validity means the suitability of a technique to answer the question that it was intended to answer

Is every chart, graph and other data presentation technique valid?

Be ethical

Have you acknowledged all the sources of secondary data that you have used?

Evaluating your data analysis

Be objective

Statistical tests have different requirements for minimum number of measurements, type of variable and whether a normal distribution is required.

Can you provide a mathematical justification for your choice of statistical test?

For qualitative techniques, have you eliminate your own subjectivity as much as you can?

Be critical

Results may not turn out as you expected. Testing may show that your results are not statistically significant. This does not mean that your results are "wrong".

Have you tested for statistical significance?

Have you checked your figures to make sure that your calculations are correct?

Be ethical

Have you ensured confidentiality and anonymity in analysing the results?

Evaluating your conclusions

A valid conclusion is supported by reliable data obtained using a valid method and based on sound reasoning.

Be objective

Have you described every single trend, pattern and relationship form your data presentation and analysis?

Have you considered all three sources of error?

Be critical

Are all your conclusions supported by the evidence?

How have you judged that your conclusions are valid?

Be ethical

Is there a statement which details the ethical considerations of your research?

How successfully have you minimised the harm that your investigation may have upon the environment and the people in it?

Useful words for your evaluation

Here are some useful words when evaluating your methods.

True value

The true value is the value that would be obtained in an ideal measurement.

Accuracy

Accuracy means how close a measurement is to the true value.

The closer a measured value is to the true value, the more accurate it is. The further a measured value is from the true value, the greater the error.

Precision

Precise measurements have very little spread about the mean value. A precise measurement is not necessarily accurate.

Errors

An error is the difference between the result that you found and the true value.

There are three possible sources of error:

Measurement error: mistakes made when collecting the data, such as a student
mis-reading a thermometer.

Operator error: differences in the results collected by different people, such as different people giving different scores.

Sampling error: local differences meaning that one sample gives slightly different results to another.

These can produce two possible types of error:

Random error: these cause results to be spread about the true value. For example, imagine a student takes 20 temperature readings and mis-reads the thermometer for 2 of the readings. The effect of random errors can be reduced by taking more measurements.

Systematic error: these cause results to differ from the true value by a consistent amount each time the measurement is made. For example, imagine a student uses weighing scales which have not been zeroed, so all the results are 10g too high. The effect of systematic errors cannot be reduced by taking more measurements.

Anomalies

These are values in a set of results which are judged not to be part of the variation caused by random uncertainty.

Validity

The suitability of the method to answer the question that it was intended to answer.

Reliability

This is the extent to which measurements are consistent.

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Writing the evaluation is the most difficult part of your enquiry. So one way to tackle the evaluation is to think about the different parts of your work in turn: methods, data collection, data analysis and conclusions. Think about the frequency and timing of observations. Have you taken enough samples to be representative?

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Open University - Harvard Referencing Guide

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Open University - Harvard Referencing Guide

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Print this page

There are different versions of the Harvard referencing style. This guide is a quick introduction to the commonly-used Cite Them Right version. You will find further guidance available through the OU Library on the Cite Them Right Database.

For help and support with referencing and the full Cite Them Right guide, have a look at the Library's page on referencing and plagiarism. If you need guidance referencing OU module material you can check out which sections of Cite Them Right are recommended when referencing physical and online module material.

This guide does not apply to OU Law undergraduate students. If you are studying a module beginning with W1xx, W2xx or W3xx, you should refer to the Quick guide to Cite Them Right referencing for Law modules.

Table of contents

1. In-text citations and full references

2. Secondary referencing

3. Page numbers

4. Citing multiple sources published in the same year by the same author

5. Full reference examples

In-text citations and full references

Referencing consists of two elements:

in-text citations, which are inserted in the body of your text and are included in the word count. An in-text citation gives the author(s) and publication date of a source you are referring to. If the publication date is not given, the phrase 'no date' is used instead of a date. If using direct quotations or you refer to a specific section in the source you also need the page number/s if available, or paragraph number for web pages.

full references, which are given in alphabetical order in reference list at the end of your work and are not included in the word count. Full references give full bibliographical information for all the sources you have referred to in the body of your text.

To see a reference list and intext citations check out this example assignment on Cite Them Right.

Difference between reference list and bibliography

Examples of in-text citations

You need to include an in-text citation wherever you quote or paraphrase from a source. An in-text citation consists of the last name of the author(s), the year of publication, and a page number if relevant. There are a number of ways of incorporating in-text citations into your work - some examples are provided below. Alternatively you can see examples of setting out in-text citations in Cite Them Right .

It has been emphasised that good referencing is an important academic skill (Harris, 2015).

OR

It has been emphasised by Harris (2015) that good referencing is an important academic skill.

It has been emphasised (Shah and Papadopoulos, 2015) that good referencing is an important academic skill.

OR

Shah and Papadopoulos (2015) emphasised that good referencing is an important academic skill.

It has been emphasised that good referencing is an important academic skill (Wong, Smith and Adebole, 2015).

OR

Wong, Smith and Adebole (2015) emphasised that good referencing is an important academic skill.

It has been emphasised that good referencing is an important academic skill (Wong et al., 2015).

OR

Wong et al. (2015) emphasised that good referencing is an important academic skill.

Note: When referencing a chapter of an edited book, your in-text citation should give the author(s) of the chapter.

Corporate author

When there is no named author, use the title of the resource in italics

It has been emphasised that good referencing is an important academic skill (The Open University, 2015).

Information from The Open University (2015) emphasises that good referencing is an important academic skill.

It has been emphasised that good referencing is an important academic skill ( Information Literacy in Higher Education, 2015).

Information from Information Literacy in Higher Education (2015) emphasises that good referencing is an important academic skill.

Secondary referencing

You use secondary referencing when you want to refer to a source that is mentioned or quoted in the work you are reading.

To do this, you add the phrase 'quoted in' or 'cited in' (depending on whether the author of the secondary source is directly quoting or summarising from the primary source) to your intext citation, along with the details of the source that you are reading.
In-text citation examples:
West et al. (2007, quoted in Birch, 2017, p. 17) state that...
Positive identity can be affirmed in part by a supportive family environment (Leach, 2015, cited in The Open University, 2022).

You would then include full references to Birch and The Open University in your reference list as these are the sources that you have read. There is no change to the structure of the full reference for these sources.

You should include page numbers in your citation if you are quoting directly from or using ideas from a specific page or set of pages.

Add the abbreviation p. (or pp. if more than one page) before the page number(s).
Examples:
Harris (2015, p. 5) argues that...

In the drying process "polyphenol oxidizing reactions" form new flavour compounds (Toker et al., 2020, pp. 585-586)...

Citing sources published in the same year by the same author

Add a lower case letter to the date in the in-text citation and in the matching full reference to distinguish between the sources.

In text citations: Snow is formed in part because the temperature drops enough that rain freezes (The Open University, 2022a), however the freezing temperature of water is often below 0°C under certain conditions (The Open University, 2022b).
Matching full references:
The Open University (2022a) '1.2 What are clouds?'. S111: Questions in science. Available at: https://learn2.open.ac.uk/mod/oucontent/view.php?id=1938785&section=3 (Accessed: 22 November 2022).

The Open University (2022b) '1.3.1 Snow and ice'. S111: Questions in science. Available at: https://learn2.open.ac.uk/mod/oucontent/view.php?id=1938785&section=4.1 (Accessed: 22 November 2022).

Note: this only applies when you are using multiple different sources with the same author and year - if you are referring to the same source more than once then you do not need to add a letter to the date. The citation will be the same each time and you only need to include the source once in your reference list.

Full reference examples

Online module materials

(Includes written online module activities, audio-visual material such as online tutorials, recordings or videos).

When referencing material from module websites, the date of publication is the year you started studying the module.

OR, if there is no named author:

Examples:

You can also use this template to reference videos and audio that are hosted on your module website:

Note: if a complete journal article has been uploaded to a module website, or if you have seen an article referred to on the website and then accessed the original version, reference the original journal article, and do not mention the module materials. If only an extract from an article is included in your module materials that you want to reference, you should use secondary referencing, with the module materials as the 'cited in' source, as described above.

Example:

Note: When an ebook looks like a printed book, with publication details and pagination, reference as a printed book.

For ebooks that do not contain print publication details

Example with one author:

Example with two or three authors:

Example with four or more authors:

OR

Note: You can choose one or other method to reference four or more authors (unless your School requires you to name all authors in your reference list) and your approach should be consistent.

Note: Books that have an editor, or editors, where each chapter is written by a different author or authors.

Example:

If accessed online:

Examples:

Examples:

Examples:

Note: Cite Them Right Online offers guidance for referencing webpages that do not include authors' names and dates. However, be extra vigilant about the suitability of such webpages.

Example:

Note: If no title can be found then replace it with a short description.

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Can we come up with 100 visualizations from one simple dataset?

As an information design agency working with data visualization every day, we challenged ourselves to accomplish this using insightful and visually appealing visualizations.

We wanted to show the diversity and complexity of data visualization and how we can tell different stories using limited visual properties and assets.

Learn more

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Can we come up with 100 visualizations from one simple dataset? As an information design agency working with data visualization every day, we challenged ourselves to accomplish this using insightful and visually appealing visualizations. We wanted to show the diversity and complexity of data visualization and how we can tell different stories using limited visual properties and assets.

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Investigations in Margam Park

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Free Harvard Referencing Generator [Updated for 2023]

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Generate Harvard references automatically with our fast and free Harvard reference generator. Get correctly formatted references for books, websites, journals and more!

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https://aspb.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/HowtoReadScientificPaper.pdf

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The Importance of a Null Hypothesis in Research