Geography - Paper 2 Topic 6 - Urban Investigation

What was our inquiry question?

How and why does quality of life vary within Birmingham?

Which areas of Birmingham did we study?

Highgate - inner city

Bournville - outer suburbs

Selly Oak - inner suburbs

Define quality of life

the standard of health, comfort, and happiness experienced by an individual or group.

What were our sub-questions?

How does access to services change as we move away from the city centre?

How does environmental quality change as we move away from the city centre?

How does traffic change as we move away from the city centre?

How do residents' perceptions of their location change as we move away from the city centre?

How does community spirit change as we move away from the city centre?

Describe systematic sampling, and example of how we could have used it in this investigation.

• more time consuming, less practical

• e.g. start in Bournville, take a straight path to the CBD and take a sample every 500m

How could we have used random sampling in the investifation? (what are the negatives?)

• a sampling technique in which each sample has an equal probability of being chosen

• assign a number to each location, put in a bowl, and choose 3

• -ve: could choose places too far from each other, or that don't contrast

What 3 factors do you have to consider when choosing a location?

practicaliy (location, transport, close to school)

legality

safety (a known area is safer)

contrast - choose 2 areas with varying levels of development

Why did we choose bournville?

• near to school

• outer suburbs

• gentrified

• low level of deprivation

• differing quality of life shown

Why did we choose Selly Oak?

• on train line

• inner suburbs

• studentified

• differing quality of life shown

Why did we choose highgate?

• walking distance from CBD

• inner city varies from suburbs

• de-industrialisation

• shows a lower and differing quality of life to other wards

What are the six stages of an investigation process?

• set up inquiry question

• collect primary data at the location

• research secondary sources of information

• use a range of methods to present the data

• analyse data and make a conclusion

• evaluate and refect on enquiry question

how did we use stratified sampling in our investigation?

we used deliberately chosen locations

What is quantative data?

Uses numbers which can be categorised/ranked/measured

What is qualitative data?

descriptive data

What was the relevance of our quality of life questionnaire?

• links to sub question 4 (public/ resident perception of location). Helped us gage quality of life in he different areas

• extremely useful because in areas where we had never been before we could get an inside picture from people familiar with the area

What were the limitations of our quality of life questionnaire?

• no clarification on ambiguous open questions

• qualitative answers lack individuality compared to quantative research

• primary results are better when backed up by secondary research

• often low response rate in some areas of the city

• sometimes extra explaination needed

What was the relevance of the traffic count we used?

• lots of traffic = poor air quality, lower quality of life

• lots of pedestrian activity shows lively/ bustling location and good QoL

• congestion can lead to poor satisfaction, frustration, and noise pollution -> lower QoL

What were the limitations of the Traffic Count we used?

• was at different times of the day - not an accurate or fair sample/ comparison

• traffic count in one part of an area is not also representative

Describe the secondary data we used

IMD - index of mulitple deprivation

• composite indicator; uses 37 indicators from domains of deprivation (income, employment, education, health, crime, barrier to housing/ services, and living situation)

• updated more frequently than census data, uses of a range of data so it is more reliable

what are the advantages of Choropleth maps?

• good visual impact

• help compare values

• easy to identiy patterns

• easy to complete once key is added

• good for explaining spacial distributions

what are the disadvantages of chloropleth maps?

• inadequate to describe local patterns in larger wards as average is used

• care must be taken in shading to match the key

• shading gives a very generalised picture

What are the advantages of pie charts?

• good to show total divided up

• visually effective, simpler than bar charts

• require little additional written or verbal explaination

What are the disadvantages of pie charts?

• hard to assess % accurately from chart

• hard to compare pie charts

• small segments <5% are hard to draw

What are the advantages of line graphs?

• good to clarify trends over time

• visually effective and simpler than bar charts

• require little additional verbal or written explaination

What are the disadvantages of line graphs?

• inadiquate to describe attribue, behaviour or condition of interest

• fail to reveal key assumptions, norms of causes in tha data

• easy to manipulate to yeild false impressions

• reveal little about key descriptive statistics, skew or kurtosis

• fail to provide a check of accuracy

What are the advantages of radar graphs?

• good visual represention

• shows trends in terms of direction/ number/ volume

What are the disadvantages of radar graphs?

• don't shwo exact route taken

• care is needed when deciding on a scale for a large range of values

What are the advantages of scatter graphs?

shows a trend in data relationship

retains exact data values and sample size

shows max/ min values and outliers

what are the disadvantages of scatter graphs?

hard to visualise results in large data sets

flat line trend = inconclusive results

data on both axis should be continuous

line of best fit position is subjective

What are the advantages of bar charts?

• common so easily understood

• show relative magnitudes easily

• scale passes through 0, so -ve and +ve values can be displayed

what are the disadvantages of bar charts?

can be overcomplicated by including too many bars

Where was overall quality of life the worst?

In Highgate, due to factors like crime, litter and pollution (field work like EQS, traffic count)

Reasons for this include historic slum clearance (not good enough new housing built), and poor job opportunities

According to the census, only 13% are "professional"

5.9% of people claiming out of work benefits

9 people answered the survey saying their quality of life was "very bad"

The house prices here were, on average, under half of that in Bournville

Where was overall quality of life best?

Bournville - census data told us there were low crime rates, and a low % of people claiming out of work benefits (4.7%). Primary data also supported this - 20 people said quality of life was "very good", 0 said "very bad"