Hi, my name is Chloe and I'm a geography field studies tutor.

Today's lesson is all about collecting human geographical data, and it sits in the unit, all about fieldwork.

We're gonna be covering lots of different techniques that you could use during your fieldwork to collect really great, valuable and meaningful data.

Let's get started.

After today's lesson, you're going to be able to use questionnaires and surveys to collect a variety of human geographical data.

There's lots of keywords in today's lesson, so let's review those now.

First of all, primary data.

This is data that is collected in person during the fieldwork itself.

In contrast, secondary data is data that has previously been collected by someone who's usually unknown to the person doing the fieldwork.

Quantitative data is data that is made up of numbers, while qualitative data is data that's made up of text.

You're gonna be seeing those words a lot in today's lesson.

So here's the outline of our lesson today in three parts.

What are the different types of geographical data? How do geographers use questionnaires? And how do geographers collect data in a settlement? Let's start with that first one about the different types of geographical data.

So geographers consider many types of data when they're carrying out fieldwork inquiries.

Some data is collected in person in the field, and this is what's known as primary data.

Other data is collected by researching from books, from articles and websites for the information.

And this data will have been collected by someone else, and it's someone that you don't normally know, and that is called secondary data.

Secondary data does not have to be collected by experts.

It might be data that's been collected by another student, maybe somebody from another year group who's gone to the same place that you have.

You can then compare your data with theirs.

Another way of describing data is to say whether it is quantitative, in other words, it's made up of numbers.

So that's things like measurements and scores and counts, or it's qualitative.

It's made up of text, and that could be things like a story, somebody's opinion, could be a description of something.

All forms of data collected as part of a fieldwork inquiry should aim to answer the inquiry question.

No one bit of data has more value than another.

So let's check what we've looked at so far.

True or false? Secondary data does not always have to be collected by experts.

Is that true or false? I hope you got that one right.

It is true.

It doesn't have to always be collected by experts.

And why is that? Well, secondary data is collected by someone else.

It doesn't have to be an expert.

It could be collected by another student.

It could be collected by your teacher, for example.

Human geographical data is data that tells geographers information about people, where they live and work, the activities they do and the issues that affect them.

Geographers can measure how people feel about a feature or an issue, the quality of a built environment and activity that they find in a built environment too.

Surveys that geographers use to collect human geographical data are really carefully designed.

Geographers think about whether they want their data to be opinions such as quotes from local people.

They could be scores such as a rating for something on a numerical scale, 4 out of 5 or 6 out of 10, something like that.

The data could be a measurement such as the size of something that's being observed, or it could be a count such as a frequency with which something has happened or is being observed.

So Jacob has recorded the number of empty shops that he has observed in the high street.

What form of data is this? Pause the video and have a think.

So Jacob's data could be an opinion, a score, a measurement, or a count.

And because he's looking at the number of shops.

So the frequency of the shops, yes, it is a count.

I hope you got that one right.

Let's look at our first practise task for today.

There's a table here and it's got primary and secondary data in the rows and quantitative and qualitative data as the columns.

Sort the types of geographical data into the correct places in the table using the assigned letters.

So pause the video here, have a good read of the four different types of data that you can see there and find the right place in the table for them.

Right, let's look at your answers.

So let's look at A first of all.

Here we are noting a social media message about a place before we've actually visited it.

So this tells me that it must be secondary data, but because it's a social media message, in other words, it's gonna be text based, it must be qualitative.

Now, B, measuring noise levels at the field site.

Right, so we're at the field site now, so we know it's going to be a piece of primary data.

Measuring noise levels, so noise is measured in decibels, which is a number, so it's going to be in this part of the table, primary data that is also quantitative.

C, researching online census data about the local population.

Now, census data, again, we know that that is quantitative data, is numbers based and it's not data that we would've collected ourselves.

It's a government piece of data.

So that's going to be in this part of the table, quantitative data that is secondary.

And finally, we are photographing and then describing a place.

So if we are photographing it, we are assuming that we're actually there in the field.

So we know that it's primary data and our description of it is going to be text based, so we know it's going to be qualitative.

Hopefully you got those right! Now, let's move on to the second part of today's lesson where we're looking at how do geographers use questionnaires.

So during geography fieldwork, questionnaires are usually carried out by stopping people in the street and asking them to volunteer responses.

So it's all about getting information from everyday members of the public.

The answers are written down by the geographer or they're recorded on a digital device.

Traditionally, geographers would take a clipboard out with them and use that.

Before conducting a questionnaire, it's a good idea to test it out on friends and family.

This checks that the questions are clear and answerable.

Questionnaires should be between six and eight questions long.

Different styles of question can create different types of responses and different types of data.

So let's look at some of those different styles of question now.

If you choose a closed question, it means you can only give a set number of responses back to it.

So for example, the question here, how did you travel to the town centre today? Bus, car, train, cycle or walk? You are giving the person only a set number of ways in which they can answer.

So it's called a closed question.

You might use a scoring question.

This asks the respondent to give a score to a feature or an issue.

So here's a great example.

On a scale of 1 to 5, where 5 is very convenient and 1 is very inconvenient, how would you rate the public transport connections to this town? So you're asking the person to score on a 1 to 5 scale.

Likert questions give the respondent a statement to which they're asked their level of agreement.

So you start off with a closed statement, something like the town centre is fully accessible.

You then ask them, do you strongly agree, agree, disagree, or strongly disagree with this statement? So you're asking them for their level of agreement.

And then you have open questions.

So these allow the respondent to answer in any way they like.

So you're giving them no parameters on how they respond.

So something like, what new features would you like to see built or created in the town? Now, let's check your understanding of those different types of question.

True or false? Jun is asking an open question.

Now Jun is asking what three words describe the high street.

Is that true, he's asking an open question or false, it's a different type of question? Have a think, pause the video and I'll tell you the answer in a moment.

Right, so is John asking an open question? He is.

But why? Well, although John is asking for three words, the respondent can answer with any three words they like and that's what makes it an open question.

Now, it's better to use some types of questions over others at times.

For example, it's very easy to record the answers to a closed question.

A tally can be used in a table to show how people have responded.

So for example, one of the questions earlier asked about how people had made their way into town.

Because it's a closed question, you can just tally, in other words, put a tally mark against the different categories that you are giving that person.

Have they walked, have they taken the bus, a car, or a train? More open questions are really useful if the geographer wants to get an honest opinion on something from a member of the public because they can answer in any way they wish.

You can sometimes get some really interesting answers from open questions.

A question that asks respondents to score something allows the member of the public to answer in a more subtle way.

And it's often the case that feelings are a lot more complex than a simple like or dislike.

For example, a member of the public might like something in one way or they might dislike it in another way.

It doesn't mean they are necessarily sitting on one side of the score to another.

So a good questionnaire will have a mix of question types and that means the respondent won't lose interest and it also means that a wide range of geographical data can be collected and that is going to be really beneficial to your conclusions that you make from your fieldwork.

So let's check your understanding of these questionnaires.

Complete the sentence by filling in the missing word.

It is very easy to record answers to something questions and a something can be used in a table to show how people responded.

Have a think about this.

Think about the different types of question that you can ask in a questionnaire.

Pause the video and I'll tell you the answers in a moment.

So let's look at the answers.

It is very easy to record answers to closed questions, and that's really because a tally can be used in a table to show how people responded.

There are two tasks now to practise what you've just learned.

What type of question is Andeep asking here? What positive impacts do you think the new shopping centre has brought to the town? What type of question is Andeep asking? And your second task, state one advantage of using this type of question.

Pause the video, have a think and I'll come back to you.

Right, let's look at this question that Andeep is asking.

What positive impacts do you think the new shopping centre has brought to the town? This is an open question.

People can answer that in any way they wish.

Now the advantage of using this type of question is that it is likely to give Andeep a really honest, maybe an unrestricted opinion about the shopping centre.

People can answer in any way they wish.

So there's no restriction on how they respond.

Right, we're onto the final part of today's lesson.

How do geographers collect data in a settlement? Geographers often want to investigate the quality of the built environment.

Surveys such as building condition surveys can be used to look at how run down or visually pleasing a place is.

The geographer creates criteria against which the building is scored and they then score the building using a numerical scale.

The same method can be used to survey other elements in a settlement such as a road or an urban park.

You can come up with criteria for anything that you see in a settlement, and then give it a score based on your own opinion.

So Alex here has designed a survey to look at the quality of housing at his field site.

Let's just take a look at what he's done here.

So first of all, he's created these negative descriptions on one side of his survey.

Things like the gardens being overgrown, heavily cracked walls, guttering that is broken or absent, windows that are broken or absent so the kind of descriptions which are the most negative observations that he could make.

And he's put these in his survey next to the number 1 of his 1 to 5 score.

On the other side, he's then got the polar opposite.

He's got the positive descriptions and he's put these next to the number 5 in his scoring.

So things like gardens are well maintained that there's no cracks in the walls and so on.

So he's paired up these descriptions to be the most negative observation he could make against the most positive one that he can make.

What he's then got is a good range of criteria.

Now in this case, Alex has only got four criteria.

Generally geographers would use a few more than these if they're really looking to understand the conditions of a building or of a particular feature in a settlement.

But a good range of criteria is what's important.

He's also got this kind of tick grid system, so it means that when he is out in the field, he can really easily complete this survey.

He hasn't got to write down a whole lot when he is actually stood in the street looking at a building.

He can tick off the scores as he's reading the various criteria, makes it really easy to complete this survey.

And what he's also chosen is a 1 to 5 scale.

Now, he could have chosen a few different ranges.

There he could have chosen 1 to 10 or 1 to 3, but a 1 to 5 scale in this instant gives him a really good range of possible outcomes, but not too many that he's having to spend a lot of time kind of deliberating in the field trying to decide which score to give.

Other human data surveys require geographers to record counts of something.

In some cases this is done through firsthand observation.

For example, the number of pedestrians and the amount of traffic can be measured by standing in one place for a set period of time and simply counting as those things pass you.

So typically something like five minutes stood on the street and counting the number of people or the number of vehicles is very kind of typical way of measuring pedestrians and traffic.

You might also survey litter.

You can do this by standing in a particular place or by walking along a route and literally counting how much litter is found in that space.

Some surveys might require specialist equipment such as a decibel counter and that records noise.

And again, you would stand in a certain place and record the noise levels in that place and then write it down.

Right, let's do a quick check on understanding here.

What methods could Aisha use to find data that would help her answer her inquiry questions? So Aisha's question is, are the busiest areas of town also the noisiest? So she's got two elements there, how busy the place is and how noisy the place is.

There's lots of options here.

Could she look at the condition of the road? Could she look at traffic count? How many vehicles are moving through a space? Decibel count, a pedestrian count or a housing quality survey? Now I'll give you a hint here.

There's more than one answer that's correct.

So which methods could Aisha use to find data that would help her answer that inquiry question? Pause the video and I will tell you the correct answers in a moment.

Right, let's look at the five different options here.

We need some data, which is telling Aisha how busy the place is.

So it could be that she's going to use a traffic count or a pedestrian count or both.

She also needs to look at how noisy the place is.

So yes, fairly straightforward, she would need to do a decibel count as well in different places.

That would then tell her if the busiest area is also the one which is noisiest.

I really hope you got that right.

Geographers can also map elements of their data as part of their data collection.

A really common one is land use.

So land use mapping notes the purpose of each building or each parcel of land, if it hasn't been built on.

It could be done by shading a map different colours according to the land use.

So you might have residential areas being read and so on and so on.

Or you could use a letter code and RICEPOTS, is a kind of common acronym, which is used in land use mapping.

So R for residential, I for industrial, C for commercial, and so on and so on.

What this means is geographers can just walk around an area and note the land use they observe as they go.

So once they come across, for example, a shop which would come under commercial, they would simply put the letter C onto their map to show that land use.

You can also map particular features that are important to your inquiry question.

For example, if a geographer is studying accessibility, they might map where they find features that aid accessibility, such tactile paving, which you can see in the photograph here, next to the junction or ramps or other features like that.

So you'd actually note where those things are on the map.

If they're studying something like transport, they can map the location of bus stops, taxi ranks, cycle lanes, and so on and so on.

So again, you can just use a blank map and just note down where the different features are.

Let's check your understanding now of those.

So true or false? Land use mapping should be used in every geographical inquiry.

Is that true or false? Okay, it is false.

Doesn't have to be used in every geographical inquiry.

But it is extremely commonly carried out.

It's a good grounding on which you can do lots of other data collection, so it should only be used if the data its produces helps the geographer to answer their inquiry question.

It's quite common that we will pair up land use surveys with another survey to show how the two bits of data link together.

Your final practise task for today.

Lucas is planning how he will carry out a survey that measures the quality of a park in his local area.

Design a survey that can be filled in easily when Lucas visits the park.

There's two criteria here.

It should have a scoring system that allows Lucas to record positive and negative observations and it needs to have four criteria for him to score the park against.

So you need to think about how would you lay this out on the page? How would you design the survey? What would it actually look like on the page so that Lucas could literally pop it on his clipboard, go out and easily fill it in when he visits the park? This takes a little bit of thought, so pause the video, sketch out some ideas and see what works.

And I'll come back to you with what I think it could look like.

Okay, this is just one way you could do it.

You could have a grid-like system like this where you've got a 1 to 5 score across the top.

You've got some negative criteria on the left hand side, nearest to the 1 score and some positive criteria along the other side, next to the 5 score.

Those criteria are paired up so you can see something like play equipment is damaged or absent and then on the other side, well-maintained and extensive play equipment and so on.

All of those criteria cover a wide range of different things that Lucas might find in the park.

And then in the centre, we've got a grid-like system so Lucas can easily tick which score is applying to which criteria.

I hope you got something similar.

It might have very different criteria in it, but it's probably gonna be laid out in a pretty similar way to what I've got here.

Right, let's look at everything that we've learned today.

Geographers can collect lots of different types of data during fieldwork, such as primary and secondary data.

Questionnaires can have different styles of questions that are used to measure different aspects of people's opinions.

Specific surveys can be used to score different aspects of activity in and the quality of a settlement such as noise or litter.

Well done! There was a lot of information there about collecting human geographical data as well as information about the different types of data that you might come across in your geography fieldwork.