GEOGRAPHIC DATA COLLECTION METHODS

OVERVIEW OF TYPICAL GEOGRAPHIC METHODS OF DATA COLLECTION

Geographers use specialized research methods to study earth features and human activities. These methods include;

Field study:  A technique that relies on direct observation as the means of learning about the earth’s surface and the patterns resulting from human activity. Geographers travel to regions to answer specific questions about the area or to learn about unfamiliar geographic relationships.

Mapping: This is one of the geographers’ most basic activities. Many aspects of geographic research can be shown on maps. Maps present in a simplified form complex pieces of geographic information. They can easily describe the location, characteristics and patterns of geographic elements.

Interviewing: Observation alone can not answer all geographic questions. At times geographers want to study the attitudes people have towards certain places or how their surroundings is affected by their beliefs and activities. This information can be obtained by interviewing groups of people. Researches often do not interview the entire group, instead they interview a portion of the group scientifically selected to represent the entire population (Sampling).

Interviews can be formal when guided or informal when guided by a topic.

There are face to face and telephone interviews

Advantages of interviews:

Enable discussion among the researcher and the correspondent

Help to have information on certain groups through telephone interviews

Disadvantages of interviews

Time consuming and costly

Inaccuracy of information due to forgetfulness, shy, or biasness

The researcher may employ research assistants who are not competent.

Lack standards during evaluation.

Focus groups: Acquiring information from a group of 10–20 people. It helps them to understand and voice some of the geographic problems they face. A group should be representative of the whole population. A focus group enables people with different views to discuss their differences, challenge assumptions and come to a collective understanding of the geographic problems. This method gives give a very brief precise and specific information about the problem. They create new knowledge which was not obtained through other methods.

 Quantitative methods: With the aid of the computer geographers often test their research by using quantitative (mathematical and statistical) methods. These methods help to simplify complex information and to present it in a form that is more easily understood. They also help geographers find the patterns in geographic elements and determine which factors affecting a particular element are the most important.

The use of scientific instruments: This is very crucial to geographic research. Geographers use remote sensing devices to identify and study hard to reach or very large physical features. Such devices are instruments that observe and record information from a distance. These devices include aerial and satellite cameras, infrared (heat sensitive) films, and radar. These devices record information about weather systems, patterns of vegetation growth, the existence of pollution, etc.  Some instruments measure environmental characteristics such as weather gauges, which measure and record temperature, humidity, wind speed and direction and air pressure.

FIELDWORK IN GEOGRAPHIC RESEARCH

Geography is a field study subject, concerned with accurate observation, recording and interpretation of the variable nature of the human and physical landscapes.

The geographers’ laboratory is in the field, the local environment.

Types of field work:

Field excursion (Field trip): Refers to the trip round the locality or further a field in order to visit places of geographical interest. Students (researchers) observe, listen to lectures by experts (resource persons). Although it is difficult to structure it has the advantage of bringing students into reality of the environment. They are given the opportunity to identify problems of development for later class discussion.

Field study: Refers to the practice whereby students are taken to permanent field centres or laboratories, chosen and maintained by geography departments, for purpose of studying geographic patterns and processes. Students may closely examine and analyse a piece of landscape to understand spatial variations. It involves intensive investigation.

Field research: Refers to fieldwork organized in the context of problem solving approach. A problem of study is stated. A hypothesis put forward for testing; data collection; analysis; hypothesis testing, Conclusion.

Historical background of Fieldwork in Geography
Change has been present throughout the long development of geography.

v There have been a number of different phases or trends in the discipline.

v Throughout all this change over the centuries, however, a few things have remained constant.

v the subject matter of geography hasn't really changed

Since the time of the ancient Greeks, geographers have been concerned with the Earth's surface as the home of mankind

Something else that has not changed is the fact that geography has always been a discipline of observation

v Observation is simply the most basic way of understanding the fundamental components of geography

-geographers have been observers for centuries

-Homer and other Greeks who observed their surroundings and wrote about them are today recognized as geographers as much as they are by other disciplines

v Fieldwork has evolved from its traditional, observational-based origins to a diversity of learning and teaching processes that, since the 1960s and 1970s, have been characterised by increased orientation around study of geographical processes (cf  observation of form) and research and problem-solving approaches. Such approaches have necessarily demanded development of subject-specific technical skills, but also the opportunities provided by fieldwork for developing transferable skills (for example teamwork, leadership) and student employability were recognised in the 1980s when such skills became explicit learning objectives of fieldwork (Kent et al, 1997).

v Observation has formally been incorporated into geography through fieldwork.

v fieldwork is nothing more than systematic observation by a geographer of his or her subject matter

v anyone can do fieldwork, and every good geographer does

virtually anyone can do it because fieldwork is, at its most fundamental, just going out and looking at the land

-all the training you need is knowing what to look for

-knowing what to look for involves training in your respective area

-physical geographers, for example, need to understand geomorphology before going out to research the erosion pattern of a slope

-economic geographers need to understand land use types before going out to chart economic patterns in American cities

The importance of Field Work to Geography

Fieldwork is important to geography because it contributes so fundamentally to geographical research and to our basic understanding of the Earth's surface.

·       To understand history in its fullest sense, one cannot just read books about past events or what are commonly called secondary sources

·       To understand geography or do geographic research, one must consult primary sourcesin this respect, geographers certainly make use of some of the same primary sources as researchers in other fields do

·       Geographers doing research spend much time in the archives looking at original documents like census manuscripts

·       Geography, however, has another primary source that is quite different from those used in other fields; this, of course, is thelandscape

·       The landscape is the primary source of the geographer, whether he or she is a physical, cultural, or economic geographer

-it can be rural or urban

-it contains all of the essential facts of geography and, many would say, the means of explaining those facts

For Field Work to be Precise and Valid a Geographer has to:

1.     Be curious and observant

-you must want to do fieldwork, and you must keep your eyes open

2.     Take clear, organized notes

-fieldwork is just sightseeing unless you can use the information later

3.     Pay careful attention to your location, making good use of maps

-no matter how detailed your observations are, they are of little value in geography if you cannot link them to a location

-this is where maps come in handy in the field

-making notes about a site at its location on a good map lends precision to your fieldwork

-increasingly, you can note your location accurately by using GPS

-Global Positioning System receivers are lightweight and portable

-they are also becoming quite accurate

-better models can even record and store data for sample locations; you can later download that data directly into a GIS

4.     Be consistent: fieldwork is literally data collection, whether it is soil or plant types or religious patterns, so consistency is important for accurate results

The value of good fieldwork will not usually be seen in the field, but will instead show up later . . . when you analyzeyour field observations.

o   remember, fieldwork is data collection

o   your observations are thus raw data

o   if you have observed things systematically and recorded these observations consistently, your analysis of the data will go smoothly

o   you will also be able to do something with your data

-most basic is mapping similar observations

-then, interpret and explain the pattern

-finally, compare the pattern to other patterns

Approaches to Field Work

Historically, two views have tended to dominate fieldwork, at least in American geography (Deductive and Inductive Methods).

Deductive Method

o   one of these was common at the University of Chicago

-in this view, geographers studied a particular problem in depth and then went into the field to look for answers to the problem

-this involved the deductive method

-this method can obviously work, but it is very easy to go into the field and simply look until you find what you are looking for

Inductive Method

o   another view was held by Carl Sauer at the University of California, Berkeley

-Sauer was probably the strongest advocate of fieldwork in American geography

-he made all of his students to fieldwork, mainly in Mexico and South America

-he himself conducted fieldwork almost every year of his professional life

-he reputedly once said that any mode of transportation faster than a mule was too fast for fieldwork, and he preferred walking

-Sauer's fieldwork philosophy was just the opposite of the Chicago view

-Sauer felt geographers should identify vague topics

-they should then conduct thorough, unbiased fieldwork and simply see what problems and answers the landscape yielded

-this involved the inductive method

-more sound logically and scientifically, in many ways

-the upshot if this was that Sauer send his students into the field with little more than a notebook

-students were not told how to do fieldwork, for everyone does it differently

-they were certainly not told what to look for

-it was really on the job training

-they include step-by-step instructions on a wide range of techniques and skills

-they also include a series of exercises on each of the major topics related to fieldwork