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3.3.2 Investigation requirements
3.3.2 Investigation requirements
Students are required to undertake an independent investigation. This must incorporate a significant element of fieldwork. The fieldwork undertaken as part of the individual investigation may be based on either human or physical aspects of geography, or a combination of both. They may incorporate field data and/or evidence from field investigations collected individually or in groups. What is important is that students work on their own on contextualising, analysing and reporting of their work to produce an independent investigation with an individual title that demonstrates required fieldwork knowledge, skills and understanding.
The independent investigation must:
- be based on a research question or issue defined and developed by the student individually to address aims, questions and/or hypotheses relating to any part of the specification content
- involve research of relevant literature sources and an understanding of the theoretical or comparative context for a research question/hypothesis
- incorporate the observation and recording of field data and/or evidence from field investigations that is of good quality and relevant to the topic under investigation
- involve justification of the practical approaches adopted in the field including frequency/timing of observation, sampling and data collection approaches
- draw on the student's own research, including their own field data and/or secondary data, and their experience of field methodologies of the investigation of core human and physical processes
- demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the techniques appropriate for analysing field data and information and for representing results, and show ability to select suitable quantitative or qualitative approaches and to apply them
- demonstrate the ability to interrogate and critically examine field data in order to comment on its accuracy and/or the extent to which it is representative, and use the experience to extend geographical understanding
- require the student to independently contextualise, analyse and summarise findings and data, and to draw conclusions, by applying existing knowledge, theory and concepts to order and understand field observations and identify their relation to the wider context
- involve the writing up of field results clearly, logically and coherently using a range of presentation methods and extended writing
- demonstrate the ability to answer a specific geographical question drawing effectively on evidence and theory to make a well-argued case
- require evaluation and reflection on the investigation including showing an understanding of the ethical dimensions of field research.
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