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The EQA technique is widely used in Urban and Rural KS4 fieldwork enquiries. Students using an EQA in their formal fieldwork enquiry will need to be introduced to the skills and techniques needed to plan, undertake and evaluate this method.
Introductory techniques
Students look at a photo of their area of interest, which may be their future study site. They start by saying what they see. Encourage their geography observation skills, asking them to pick out interesting physical features and human impacts or interactions within the environment.
This sets the scene for using their observations to annotate and make links, beyond the cursory, superficial view of a landscape. As an extension you could ask students to use geographical lenses to frame their observations, which allows them to focus their thoughts on themes or concepts relevant to the geography of the area.
By observing an area through a particular lens, we can consider its geography more broadly away from personal bias and consider how certain aspects might impact the area and their impression of it. For example, consider asking students to find photographic evidence of how a place might be…
A second introductory technique involves using emotional mapping as a way of making qualitative judgements around the lived experience of an area. This more creative, innovative technique can be used to unlock personal experience, values and emotional response to an area, which is an excellent preparation to move on to the EQA technique.
The Environmental Quality Assessment
The set up of the EQA data table itself must depend on the enquiry question. For KS4, students need to understand and be able to justify the validity of the categories chosen in the EQA. As well as thinking about the accuracy and precision of the data collected, they also need to consider the reliability of their conclusions.
All looking at the same view, students should individually complete the following:
| Score | 1 – 3 |
| Building maintenance |
| Score | -2 to +2 |
| Crime |
Questions:
- Have we all got the same answers? If not, why not? How reliable is our data?
- Does a minus to positive scale work? What does –2 amounts of crime look like?
- What are the limitations of this method?
- How can we make it more precise? Accurate? Reliable?
- Does a score of 5 for litter mean lots of litter or no litter? Same with graffiti?
Through guided discussion based on the above questions, students are empowered to adapt this subjective method to improve it. For example:
- on a more precise scale, is 1 – 5 better than, 1 – 3, what about 1 – 10?
- as a group decide what a ‘5’ looks like, then use this as a control level to base our further decisions
- introduce definitions or descriptions to the categories which give more detail, e.g. instead of lots of graffiti, quantifying ‘over X incidents of graffiti’ allows more reliability.
It should be clear to students that the categories are not set but are chosen to give valid data clearly linked to the enquiry question. The best way of doing this is to suggest some categories and then leave some lines blank in order for students to add their own thoughts. A class discussion is a useful way of doing this by asking students to justify their submission.
Students insert the chosen scale and add three valid categories in the blank spaces. Make sure environmental, social and economic factors are all covered.
| Negative category | Positive category | |||||
| Environment is largely man-made with little to no green space or plants | Green space and plants are visible and accessible in the environment | |||||
| Lack of access to street furniture (such as benches, lighting, bins, safety barriers) | Accessible street furniture (e.g. benches, lighting, bins and safety barriers) | |||||
| Poor building maintenance (add a description) | Well maintained buildings (add a description) | |||||
| Column totals | Overall total= / |
Considerations:
- one EQA on its own is not useful, consider making a comparison of two or more areas
- if comparing different areas, consider the reliability and representation of your sample. How many repeats will you do, and how much of the area can you cover?
- consider the sampling strategy. Is a random, systematic or stratified sample the most effective for your enquiry?
Data presentation
At KS4 a key skill is the justification of the effectiveness of data presentation techniques. This means students need to be involved in the process of choosing suitable graphs.
EQA data can be displayed effectively on radar graphs, but to progress from KS3, it is useful to locate the data in the location it was collected. For example:
Remember to keep the scale the same on every radar graph to have a reliable conclusion.
Another way to do this is to use GIS to present proportional symbols of the total EQA scores located using latitude and longitude. This also allows students to compare specific categories and identify patterns, which helps with their analysis.
GIS is a skill that KS4 students, and especially those going on to A level, need to be exposed to and have experience of. For more information on using GIS in your teaching visit GIS for Data Presentation – Field Studies Council.
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The Geographical Association (GA) has worked closely with the Field Studies Council (FSC) to develop these resources.
