Unit 4B fieldwork planning

Dear all

Many questions have come up about fieldwork, I have worked through one hypothesis, but here are my suggestions for an aim and what else should be included in a fieldwork question! See you all at 730 on the live blog.

Fieldwork

Aim: To investigate the relationship between the regeneration and conservation issues in Poole

Hypothesis 1:

The building of the Twin Sails Bridge will significantly reduce the congestion in Poole

Justification:

• The Old bridge was built in 1927
• It can halt traffic for up to half an hour
• it is not cyclist/pedestrian/disabled friendly
• Poole is a tourist Honeypot site and needs to improve facilities
• People commute into the centre of Poole for work in the services sector
• Poole has the European Ferry port

Method:

• Before and after traffic survey (see guidance on Moodle)
• Include new locations after the bridge is built and has been open for some time
• Count over a systematically pragmatic choice of locations over a given time period, same time in each location
• Us a group of geography students
• Possibly locate secondary data from Borough of Poole on their site. 
• Use a Mann Whitney U to compare results and assess for a significant difference

Risk Assessment:

• Students must wear High Vis jackets
• Groups of three as a minimum
• appropriate clothing and footwear
• Mobile Phone contacts to staff
• Areas with pavements chosen

Limitations:

• Only possible to do for one day as a group, would require a longer study over a summer and winter season to be significant
• Could not make it to Poole for morning rush hour with students, so would only reflect evening rush hour
• Bridge's and new road networks take a few months to bed in, and the old bridge will close for nine months this year in order to be refurbished. 
• Would be difficult to cover a weekend and weekday as a group of students. 

Hypothesis 2: 

The regeneration of the Hamworthy Gate site, will not have a significant impact on the environment in Holes Bay

Justification:

Method:

Risk Assessment:

Limitations:

Hypothesis 3:

The regeneration plans will significantly improve the quality of life in Poole

Justification:

Method:

Risk Assessment:

Limitations:

Live Session for Poole

Dear All

Thursday is the exam, so on wednesday, please submit any questions you have to the ticker, they will not appear immediately, but will appear at about 7:30 when I start the live session. Hopefully, we can cover most topics, but if you need to ask a question, this is the way! You can even replay it later if you aren't around tomorrow evening, but then, where else could you possibly want to be? Any question allowed, as long as it connects to Poole, bear in mind, the answers to your question will appear as fast as I can type!

Dear Upper Sixth,


As promised, the third post for our Unit 4B exam next week, the lovely Nikki Lewis has clarified the stats tests for you, and given you some examples to work through.

Please download the sheet to have a go, and there is an explanation there for each for you, but as a brief summary:

Spearmans Rank:

Explanation: Used to prove a relationship between two variables, the result is a positive or negative correlation, and this works well when there are only two variables, and for tests where you believe they will be connected.
Result: The result should always be between 1 and -1, and the closer to either end of that scale, the stronger the correlation.
Exam Answer: Make sure you comment on both the strength of the correlation and the level of significance at which it has been accepted, and state which hypothesis has been accepted.
Possible Tests: Type of employment against type of housing, type of employment against another type of employment (Do different economic groups live in the same region?), Population density against type of employment (Do those in higher managerial and professional roles live in less densely packed surroundings).

Chi Squared:

Explanation: A test used to asses if there is a statistically significant difference in distribution of frequencies across an area. This can be used to compare anything that can be expressed as a frequency, such as number of people employed in a certain category, or number of cars in a region. The test will tell you if there is a difference, but not where the difference is, or how much of a difference there is, once you have a positive result, you need to go back to the raw data to search for the difference and then explain the reason behind it.
Result: The result is the sum of all the Chi Squared values, and needs to be greater than the significance value for the degrees of freedom in your test. This is calculated by the number of columns minus one, multiplied by the number of rows minus one. Then you have to go back to the data to find the reason for the difference.
Exam Answer: If a difference has been proved, you can say that according to the result of the Chi Squared test, the positive hypothesis can be accepted, and there is a statistically significant difference between the distribution of frequencies in the given area. You should then refer to the observed frequencies in your test, and explain where the difference is, and any reasonable explanation, or explain how you would conduct further research to find the reason for the difference.
Possible Tests: Traffic observations over area affected by the new road network (pedestrians, lorries and cars over several areas), types of housing over areas, types of employment over areas.

Mann Whitney U:

Explanation: This test will tell you only if there is a significant difference in two sets of data, any data can be used, and for this test you do not need to have the same number of samples in each set of data. This means it is ideal for before and after surveys, particularly with the bridge, as you can add several more survey points to the new road network when it is complete, and still use this test.
Result: This test takes the lowest value or the two rows Mann Whitney values, and the result has to be BELOW the significance level for the number of data sets. The significance values will either be given to you, or will appear as a table such as this:

Exam Answer: The Mann Whitney U value shows that there has been a significant change, this can be seen in the data for x,y,z, and as such the new bridge is clearly reducing the congestion in Poole.
Possible Tests: If the result is accepted, then you have proved there is a significant difference, you need to asses the raw data to see if there is an increase or decrease.
Possible Tests: Traffic, change in population make up or densities before and after the bridge and redevelopment.

Stats for Blog

If you want us to mark any, email us, or leave a comment and I will get back to you!

Millie

Unit 4B word Cloud.

Dear All


In an effort to be exciting and dynamic with our teaching of 4B, here is a word cloud visualising the most common terms used in the AIB booklet. It may be useful to consider which words appear most frequently!



Millie