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Appreciating the value of background research: pre-fieldwork literature reviews

Contact details

Dr. John H. McKendrick
Centre for Research on Families and Relationships
23 Buccleuch Place
University of Edinburgh
Edinburgh
EH8 9LN
Tel: 0775-998-5508 / 0131-651-1940
Fax: 0131-651-1833 / 01292-220045
Email: : jmckndrk@aol.com / j.mckendrick@ed.ac.uk

Also involved are:
Dr. Elizabeth Mooney
Dr. Chris McWilliams
School of Law and Social Sciences
Glasgow Caledonian University

Classification Category

• Developing student appreciation of research in the discipline.
• Development of student research skills (explicitly, in addition to other disciplinary and generic skills).
• Using assignments which involve elements of research processes (e.g. literature reviews, bidding for grants, drafting bids or project outlines, analysing existing project data, presenting at a 'conference').
  
  

Context

• Course/unit/module title: Practising Geography: The Isle of Bute Module
• Course title: Geography subject pathway within the BA Social Sciences degree
• Level 2 in Scotland (4 years Honours Degree)

What does the teacher do?

Fieldwork and residential field courses are an integral part of geographical education. However, concerns have been expressed that fieldwork, and in particular residential fieldwork, is detached from class-based learning. Others have expressed a concern that the way in which knowledge is generated through fieldwork is exploitative in that information is collected from a location and its people without any attempt to provide anything in return. By requiring students to write background notes on a location in advance of field course and by making these notes available to the wider public thereafter, the detachment and 'exploitative' nature of fieldwork can be addressed. This can also have the added benefit of preparing students for fieldwork and raising enthusiasm and awareness for the field location in advance of the field visit.

Practising Geography, the second year undergraduate Human Geography module at Glasgow Caledonian University, requires small groups of students (typically three per group) to undertake a desk-based review of one aspect of the geography of the Isle of Bute in advance of visiting the island for fieldwork, e.g. economy, housing, sustainable development. Two weeks in advance of the field visit, each group submits an electronic copy of its review to the Module Leaders. The Module Leaders collate these reviews, format them into the 'house style' and distribute them as a set of 'Introductory papers' to all students one week in advance of the field visit. Students also deliver an oral presentation of their review at the last class meeting in advance of the field visit. Module Leaders determine which of the papers are publishable (subject only to minor editorial revisions).

The lecturer performs either 10 tasks (if the case study is used as part of a student publishing project) or 6 tasks (if the 'Introduction' is only used as an integral part of fieldwork). Resources may be downloaded from the StuP website for starred items:

Publishing Project and Fieldwork Preparation

• Provides advice on 'field location' reading/resources upon which the student could draw to execute the research
• * Provides a sample 'Thematic Introduction to Field Location' paper
• * Provides written guidance on how to write a 'Thematic Introduction to Field Location' paper
• * (2 weeks in advance of the field visit) Receives the text from students, formats the text for each paper into the 'house style', collates the formatted papers and produces a set of papers for distribution to each student in advance of the fieldwork
• Schedules the oral presentations (1 week in advance of the field visit)
• Assesses the oral presentations for coursework assessment

Publishing Project only

• Classifies papers into those that are 'publishable' and those which require further revision prior to being published
• Edits the 'publishable' papers
• Files away the non-publishable papers for use as a resource by next year's student cohort
• Arranges for the publication of edited papers

This case study was developed as a part of the StuP project (STUdent Publishing of fieldwork geography). StuP is a self-contained project that supports undergraduate geography students to coursework on the environment/geography of the Isle of Bute. It is funded by LTSN-GEES.

Hot tips and things to look out for

Use the StuP resources! The production of these resources has been time-consuming and, under the terms of the GEES project grant, they are being now being made available for adaption/adoption in other institutions.

Does it work?

Two evidence streams lead to the conclusion that the case study works.

First, results from a post-module student survey (40 students, a 71% response rate) suggest that the pre-fieldwork research exercise is successful. The process of producing a group authored paper was effective; despite two-thirds of groups bringing together students who 'did not know each other' beforehand, 79% of students reported that they did their 'fair share' of the work (18% perceiving they did 'more than their fair share) and 71% of students considered that their group worked 'effectively' or 'very effectively' (16% perceiving that they were neither effective nor ineffective). Thus, the pre-fieldwork exercises seem to be a 'positive' introduction for students to groupwork. The resources to support the students' writing were also effective; 84% judged the guidance notes to be 'very useful' or 'useful' (the remainder considering them to be useful in parts). Most importantly, the papers themselves were a well-used resource. Only one student did not read any of the papers, with the majority (65%) selectively reading the papers which were of most interest/use to them. 75% of students read the papers in advance of the field course (within a week), 25% read them during the field course and 37% read them after the field course (multiple answers possible). On the whole, 73% of students judged that these were either 'useful' or 'very useful', 28%considered them to be of 'useful in parts', with no students finding them to be only 'quite useful' or 'not at all useful'.

Second, seven of these papers have been published. In each case, only minor editorial changes were required beforehand.

What problems/issues have arisen?

An on-going process of implementation, reflection and revision has addressed early problems with the resources which have been made available to support student learning.

An extensive module resource base and the scale of the field locality (a small island with a population of ca. 8,000) each contribute to the success of the exercise: without either component, this exercise might prove to be more difficult for students to complete.

Some students - the minority - have found it difficult to coordinate group writing. On the other hand, one particularly enthusiastic group all visited the island in advance of the field course to collect data for their 'Thematic Introductory' paper!

Details of support material/course work/assessment methods

StuP has been conceived as a demonstration project for LTSN-GEES in the UK. A key objective of this project was to make the project resources available for lecturers to adopt/adapt in other departments of geography, earth and environmental sciences.

The following resources can be downloaded as Microsoft Word files from the 'Resources to Download' sub-section of the StuP section of the module website

• Guidance Notes for Student Authors. These notes can be used for students working independently or in small groups.
• Exercise Notes for Academic Staff. This paper sets forth the rationale and implementation options for this pre-field course exercise.
• 'Thematic Introduction to Field Location' Template (Mail Merge Master and Data File) and User Notes. These files can be used by students for manual (cut and paste) or automatic (mail merge function) formatting of supporting text for a thematic introduction to a field location.
• Exemplar. An example of a thematic introduction to a field location. Authored by Dr. John McKendrick this paper summarises the 'Geographical Situation' of the Isle of Bute. This is Introductions to Bute Paper 1, which can be accessed from 'Resources on the geography and environment of the Isle of Bute / Introductions to Bute'

Relevant references

Student-published 'Introductions to the geography of the Isle of Bute' can be found within the 'Introductions' sub-section of the 'Electronic Resources' section of the module website at Glasgow Caledonian University. At the time of writing, seven papers have been published by student groups on the themes of Tourist History, Contemporary Tourism, Built Environment, Social Problems, Transport, Leisure for Visitors and Connections With Glasgow.

More information on the StuP project can be found within the StuP pages of the module website at Glasgow Caledonian University.