How the Information Theory was enacted

Inquiry learning activities implement a social constructivist approach that enables students to interact with the information they discover. Students are strongly encouraged to ask questions to help build their understanding and comprehension and in so doing construct their own concepts and knowledge. The questioning approach, so fundamental to inquiry learning, is used throughout the inquiry process thus enabling students to progress from simple fact finding to the application of new found knowledge in new and unrelated circumstances (Kuhlthau, Maniotes, & Caspari, 2007).

The most important educational implication of constructivist learning is that it is student centred.  According to the constructivist view point knowledge is a creation of the mind and is constructed as we network with our surroundings. It is an active process of selecting and interpreting information and is influenced by our own unique, existing schemata as well as by our interests and motivations. The ultimate aim of all guided inquiry learning is to develop the initiative, confidence and problem solving skills required for open inquiry. Students need to develop this skill over time and this is where guided or structured inquiry tasks come in. Slowly, as students are scaffolded and facilitated through increasingly less structured tasks they develop the skills and mental stamina needed to accomplish these tasks.It is vital; therefore, that learning is student centred and active (Kuhlthau, Maniotes, & Caspari, 2007; Coffman, 2009).

Inquiry learning can be viewed on a continuum ranging from confirmation inquiry that is highly teacher directed, to open inquiry that is entirely student led. The ILA that I witnessed would be placed at the midpoint of that continuum as it is Guided Inquiry with sufficient teacher scaffolding as required by young adolescents. (Bell, Smetana and Binns, 2005)

The role of the teacher in guided inquiry learning includes:-

·         Encouraging curiosity:  During the ILA the teacher accomplished this by beginning the task with an online survey that enabled students to discover how many planets it would require for humanity to survive if everyone lived they way they do. This served to pique student interest about their ecological footprint.

·         Engaging extrinsic and intrinsic motivation:  students are more inclined to pursue something if it interests them personally. The teacher engaged students’ intrinsic motivation by asking them to identify one ‘footprint factor’ that was of interest to them in order to focus their inquiry research on that particular topic. Intrinsic motivation was further encouraged by making some of the goals personal, for instance “strategies that you, your family or local community could take to reduce your footprint”. One of the ways that extrinsic motivation was accomplished was to display excellent examples of past students work, this encouraged students to have a goal to work towards.

·         Facilitating:  this teacher guided the learning process by asking questions, commenting and relating new and unfamiliar experiences with established ones.

·         Creating a learning environment:  the teacher creates an environment in which the students can have the kinds of experiences they need to have in order to learn. The ILA was designed to lead the learner through a number of excellent learning experiences and not just to “teach” students about their environmental impact.

·         Diagnosing problems:  creating situations which will confront misconceptions held by the student to help them to reorganise their schema. This is often accomplished by using the “Zone of Proximal development” as discussed by Vygotsky 1978 in Kuhlthau, 2007. Using this technique students are able to master tasks that are almost out of their reach with the assistance of someone who is very familiar with the process. One way I was able to assist a student with this was by explaining and illustrating the meanings and implications behind primary and secondary research.

·         Modelling information literacy skills:  Students needed to use a number of information literacy; many of these skills were “taught” by an instructional team. Skills such as observing, collecting, analysing, synthesising, search strategies and technology strategies assisted students to make predictions and draw conclusion.

References


Bell, R., Smetana, L., & Binns, I. (2005). Simplifying inquiry instruction. The Science Teacher, 72 (7), 30-33

Coffman, T. (2009). Engaging Students through Inquiry Learning and Technology. Lanham, Maryland. The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 

Kuhlthau, C., Maniotes, L., & Caspari, A. (2007). Guided Inquiry: Learning in the 21st Century. Westport, Connecticut, Libraries Unlimited

The ILA (results)

Results

The responses to the three questionnaires from Kuhlthau’s SLIM toolkit were varied and occasionally unexpected. A sample of 10 students was taken from the original 24. Four students were unable to complete all 3 questionnaires due to absence. The sample was chosen on the basis of all three questionnaires being completed fully. Every second student was chosen on an alphabetical basis.  All completed questionnaires were, however checked for consistency of themes and content. To preserve anonymity, students are referred to as A, B, C etc.

Figure 1: Question 1 Number of facts reported by each student for each questionnaire

The students had received their task sheets and completed one lesson on the topic before answering the first questionnaire. During this initial lesson they had completed an online survey which was developed to help anyone determine their “ecological footprint”. This exercise had given them some idea of the topic and task requirements before they completed Questionnaire 1.

Their responses were qualitatively graded as facts, explanations or conclusions as explained in the SLIM toolkit. This question required students to report what they know about their topic with the expectation being that the number of facts would increase with subsequent questionnaires, as the students started researching their topic. Of the 10 sample students examined, this trend was noticed to a certain extent especially with students A, E, F, G and I. See Figure 1 below.

Figure 2: The proportion of facts, explanations and conclusions for the entire cohort

When taking all the students results into account across all three questionnaires we see that “Facts” represent the greatest proportion of the three types of responses.

A reason for the greater number of facts, rather than explanations and conclusions being reported in Questionnaires 1 and 2 could be that students were not encouraged to write their replies in full sentences (as recommended in the SLIM toolkit), and they did not receive sufficient time to complete the questionnaire. During Questionnaire 3 many of those statements were written in response to Questions 6. I have corrected my results taking those statements in account later in this report.

The changes noted between the questionnaires for the number of facts, explanations and conclusions reported for the sample of 10 students can be seen in the following graph.

Figure 3: The number of facts, explanations and conclusions for the student sample across all three questionnaires

 An increase in the amount of facts was reported in Questionnaire 2 followed by a slight decrease for Questionnaire 3.  The student answers for Questionnaire 1 commonly centred on a generalised conception of their ecological footprint.  The same question was asked in Questionnaires 2 and 3, with answers becoming progressively more specific to the students’ chosen research questions. My observation was that although the actual number of facts decreased from Questionnaire 2 to 3; the quality, detail and specificity of each student’s answers improved with each subsequent questionnaire. This is not taken into account in the graphical representations but can be observed in the following table.

 Table 1: The increase in quality and depth of statements in response to Question 1

For some students the number of facts supplied in Questionnaire 3 decreased.  This may be explained by students feeling reluctant to repeat information supplied in previous questionnaires.  In many cases it was also noted that students understood Question 1 and Question 6 of Questionnaire 3 to be referring to the same thing. Many of the statements that should have appeared in Question 1 of the last questionnaire actually appeared in Question 6; skewing the results and making it appear that fewer facts were reported in Questionnaire 3 than actually were.  The following table illustrates excerpts from student statements showing how answers to Question 6 would have been better placed as answers for Question 1. The reason for this was they were statements about the topic rather than statements reflecting the information literacy experience gained whilst undertaking an inquiry task.

Table 2: Examples of Question 6 Questionnaire 3 responses which would have been better suited under Question 1

Table 2 shows us that the results for fact, explanations and conclusions would have changed significantly had Question 6’s statements been taken into account where appropriate.    As explained under “Recommendations”; when repeating an inquiry unit of this type or administering the “SLIM” questionnaires again I would be very careful to explain the distinction between comments on knowledge of the topic vs comments on information literacy gained during the inquiry task.

If Figure 3 is corrected using Question 6’s replies where appropriate, the following graph is obtained.

Figure 4: Answers to Question 1 corrected using answers to Question 6 of Questionnaire 3 where appropriate

Here we see a steady yet significant increase in the number of facts reported during the course of the inquiry task. The number of explanations decreases fairly dramatically in Questionnaire 2 and then increases again in the last questionnaire, almost reaching the initial questionnaire’s level. Bloom’s revised taxonomy describes conclusions as a higher order thinking task comparable to evaluating. As an inquiry task progresses you would expect more of these higher order statements. The number of conclusions drops to zero in Questionnaire 2 and then doubles for the last questionnaire. A reason for the decrease and then increase in explanations and conclusions would most likely be that they students were in the “exploration phase” of Kuhlthau’s ISP.  This is described as the most difficult stage of the ISP with students becoming frustrated and discouraged. It is at this stage that students most require assistance from their instructional team of teachers and librarian. (Kuhlthau 2007) The noticeable increase in explanations and conclusions in Questionnaire 3 demonstrates that these students were able to benefit significantly from intervention strategies provided by the instructional team. These interventions consisted of; advice on search strategies when using the internet, how to determine whether a site is reliable or biased, how to reference and keep notes for a bibliography, using Word for a bibliography, how to do a “Survey Monkey” to get primary data and how to use proforma sentence structure devise to verbally analyse graphical data. During conversations with students it was also possible for me to assist with misunderstandings of words; for instance, the meanings and implications of “primary and secondary data”. Many of these interventions consisted of a one-on-one scaffolding as suggested by Vygotsky in his “Zone of Proximal Development" (Kuhlthau, 2007)

Figure 5: Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development.   Photo credit:

The students’ self reported “perceived” knowledge (Question  3) uses a qualitative scoring rubric of 0= Nothing   1= Not much  2= Quite a bit and  3= A great deal.  The question is “How much do you know about this topic?” When results are compared across the three questionnaires we see that in the first questionnaire only 2 students answered “nothing” and the majority of students answered “not much”.  No student felt confident enough at this stage to answer “A great deal”. This is to be expected when students have recently been introduced to a new task. 

 Figure 6: Perceived knowledge Questionnaire 1

When the same question was asked a few weeks later no students answered that they did not know anything, but at this stage of the task no student was confident enough in their knowledge to answer “A great deal” either.

Figure 7: Perceived knowledge Questionnaire 2

 By the end of the task when students had given their presentations, significantly more of them were confident enough in their knowledge to answer “A great deal” and only two answered “Not much”, with no student answering “Nothing”.

Figure 8: Perceived knowledge Questionnaire 3

Using the 10 student sample and making a comparison between answers to questions 1, 2 and 3 will demonstrate the correlation between perceived knowledge, interest and illustrated knowledge.  Illustrated knowledge was corrected proportionally so that all three parameters could be compared using a scale from 0 to 3 where 0=nothing and 3=a great deal. Therefore, “Perceived knowledge” as measured by Question 3: “How much do you know about this topic?”; “Interest” as measured by Question 2: “How interested are you in this topic?” and “Illustrated knowledge” as measured by counting the number of factual, explanatory and conclusive statements made for Question 1: “Write down what you know about your topic” were compared.  A strong correlation between these three parameters for the majority of students is demonstrated, especially for Questionnaire 3.  The steady increase in the length of the bars in the graph below demonstrates that the amount measured from questionnaire to questionnaire increases and is noticeably greater for questionnaire 3. This illustrates that these students, on the whole, are reasonably aware of their own strengths and weaknesses and this correlation lends credibility to their self reported insights.

Figure 9: Correlation between perceived knowledge, interest and illustrated knowledge

The same information was then manipulated to show each student’s  progression. It can be seen that most students experienced a marked improvement between Questionnaires 1 and 3. The graph also shows that many students either stayed the same from Questionnaires 1 to 2 or may even have declined slightly. This may seem counterintuitive, with the reader expecting the results to show a steady improvement in all categories as the task progresses. However the decline in interest can be explained by Kuhlthau’s stages of the ISP [provide a link here], as the second questionnaire would have been administered when most students were experiencing the “exploration” stage of their task. Common emotions felt during this stage would be confusion, frustration and doubt; this shows up as a decline in interest in the topic. Only students E and F experienced an improvement in interest in their topic from Questionnaires 1 to 2.

Figure 9: Correlation between perceived knowledge, interest and illustrated knowledge

Question 4 served the purpose of finding out what students find easy when they do research. I categorised the information literacy standards achieved by the students as:

·           Develop research question/s

·           Access information

·           Determine accuracy

·           Organisation skills

·           Understanding and applying information

·           Communication skills

·           Improvement strategies

·           Acknowledging sources

·           Technology skills

The categories  correlate to those of the Standards for the 21^st century learner (American Association of School Librarians).

Most students were able to develop appropriate questions and search strategies leading them to source information on the topics that interested them the most.  After the second questionnaire students were much more comfortable locating relevant information. This can be attributed intervention strategies and training from their teacher and librarian to assist students with the development of focus questions, expert search strategies and evaluating the credibility of their sources.

The following excerpts are of typical student responses for tasks they found easy when doing research;

·         “Finding valuable information from reliable websites was quite easy because Public transit websites have valuable information and so did the state government.”  Student A

·         “I find it easy to get the information in my head and understand it. I find it easier to get information on the internet and newspapers. I find it easy when I get direct quotes from a person to use for evidence”. Student C

·         “Thinking back to my research project, I found finding credible book resources easy through using the school library and the BCC library, I also found finding internet resources easy as well as organising the research. Working out if information is credible.” Student E.

·         “I found it easy to pick out the information that was relevant and what was not which helped me a great deal when writing my AVD [annotated visual display]. I also found it easy to find the correct information when I researched more specific terms” Student I

Figure 11: Tasks deemed as "easy to do" when conducting research 

By the end of the inquiry task many students reported that selecting and narrowing down heaps of information for their AVD was difficult. The literacy skills skills of organising and understanding content well enough to summarise it and phrase it succinctly were needed to create the AVD which was a A3 sheet of paper with both information and illustrations. Typical comments were:

 Student A.  “I found putting the information into words and finding the right pictures quite difficult.

Student E.  “...picking out appropriate information from websites, creating the annotated visual display as well as working out which questions I should find research for”

Student I . “...difficult to know what exactly to put on my AVD and to find enough visuals so that my AVD was 60% visual and 40% text. This was due to me having too much into” Student “finding specific information about my topic”

Others found it difficult to come up with focus questions:

Student C.  “It was difficult to come up with the questions to start the assignment”.

Student B.  “To pick a topic”   

Student E.  “Working out which questions I should find research for”

Many students reported some of the information literacy skills both easy and difficult. This contradiction can be understood when examining excerpts such as the following:

Student A.  “If I’m interested, I will find reading and memorising some key points really easy”. This remark was categorised under “Understanding and applying information”, as it entails deriving meaning from information. The same student wrote “I find note taking really hard.” This was categorised as “difficulty with accessing information as it entailed difficulties with choosing the correct information from a wide array of information. It was also categorised under “Understanding and applying information”, as it entailed figuring out what was appropriate for the topic.

Student B made comments demonstrating self-insight and organisational skills under both Questions 4 and 5. For Question 4 she reported, “For me, I find it easy to take notes on paper because I can easily get distracted on the computer”. For Question 5 she put, “I find it hard to concentrate on the computer”.

Figure 12: Tasks deemed as difficult to do when conducting research

In the second and third questionnaire a question appeared asking students about their feelings regarding their research. The question was not asked in the first questionnaire.  Half way through the inquiry task only three student of the sample of 10 felt confident about their research and knew where they were heading. The rest of the students reported either feeling overwhelmed or confused. These sentiments were reflected by the cohort as whole although very few students reported feeling “frustrated”. This response is to be expected at this stage of an inquiry task. Once students have started researching they often find the enormous amount information available confusing and struggle to determine what is relevant, appropriate or true. It is at this stage that intervention from the instructional team is often required. Once they have started to master the topic and have presented their findings there is often an improvement in their feelings about the topic. This can be seen in the following graph comparing student feeling at the mid-way point to the end point of their inquiry task. 

Figure 13: Students' feelings about their research mid-way through the task as compared to the end of the task

As can be seen from the above graph all except one student either improved in affect or stayed the same. Only Student C remained unhappy about her work.

In Question 6 of Questionnaire 3 the students are asked “What did you learn in doing this research project?”

Although many of the students assumed this to be a repetition of Question 1 “Write down what you know about this topic” there were many others that reported gains in self-insight such as:

Student A.  “I learnt that I need to take good notes from information and then turn it into good, well-structures paragraphs. I also  learnt that time management is vital”.

Student C.  “I have to learn to manage my time before I start the project. I learnt that I need to complete all work when I can and as soon as I can. I learnt I need to prioritise”

Student D “researching for valid information is not extremely easy”

Student E.  “To start research early. Making sure to create a bibliography as I went. To not trust all websites. That some information is just opinion. Focusing on the assignment. Time management.”

Student F.  “ I need to work on not doing this at the last minute. I learnt that writing more notes and studying about my topic helps me present my topic better and makes it seem that I know a lot of stuff on litter”

Student H.  “ ...if I focus and concentrate hard I will complete a task, despite the due date. I also learnt that you have to have very good time management for a big research task like this as well as any other assignment or task”  Student I.  “I learnt to be organised and to make sure I keep up to date with my research and journal.”

Student J.  “I learnt about myself as a researcher that I am good at finding lots of general information, however sometimes I have trouble finding specific information about my topic. I also learnt that some websites are biased or have incorrect information”

Figure 14: Self reported skills attained by the inquiry task

As can be seen from the graph, responses that rated highly for this question were “Understanding and applying information” as well as “improvement strategies”; these were mentioned by over half of the students.  Organisational skills were also mentioned by a third of the students. These were identified as problem areas for many students in the previous 2 questionnaires. This shows that tutorials presented by the instructional team paid off and that students will be better equipped to excel at this type of inquiry task in future.

References

Kuhlthau, C., Maniotes, L., & Caspari, A. (2007). Guided Inquiry: Learning in the 21st Century. Westport, Connecticut: Libraries Unlimited

Todd, R. J., Kuhlthau, C. C., & Heinstrom, J. E. (2005). School library impact measure (SLIM): A toolkit and handbook for tracking and assessing student learning outcomes of guided inquiry through the school library. Center for International Scholarship in School Libraries, Rutgers University.

The ILA (methodology)

Background

Finding a class to observe during their Inquiry learning Activity proved quite difficult (see post on Comparison to Kuhlthau’s ISP and also "What my ILA is all about"). Fortunately I did find an excellent school with a very experienced IL teacher and although the students’ ILA was not complete by the end of the university year, my lecturer gave permission for the late submission of my research project. This will be the first post in a sequence of posts describing how data was obtained and used to report the findings of this study.

Methodology

Data were collected using the School Library Impact Measure(SLIM) toolkit. This instrument was developed by Todd, Kuhlthau & Heinstrom in 2005 and was designed to measure changes in students’ levels of knowledge and information skills throughout an Information Learning Activity (ILA).

The details of the ILA as presented to the students can be found here. The aim of the study was to identify and assess which of several models of inquiry learning was used. Prior to the commencement of the ILA the teacher and I had a meeting to discuss the details and purpose of the ILA. I was told that it would continue for the duration of the fourth term, six weeks with three lessons per week. I was not able to attend all the lessons, but made sure I was there at least once a week. The teacher was informed that I would administer three questionnaires to the students. This happened at the beginning, middle and end of the unit. The teacher let the students know what would be happening before my arrival and kindly allowed me to address the students during my first visit. I informed them about the purpose of the study and assured them that their identity and that of the school and teacher would remain confidential at all times.  All students appeared interested and agreed to take part.

The first questionnaire was administered during their second lesson on the ILA. The second questionnaire was completed by students after the ILA had been running for 4 weeks. The third questionnaire was administered after a presentation evening during which students presented their results graphically and tangibly. They verbally explained and defended their findings to staff, parents, relatives and friends. Twenty four Year 9 female students from an independent school based in Brisbane took part in the study. Two students did not complete all the questionnaires due to absence however their responses were taken into account where appropriate. A random sample of 10 students' results were chosen for a more in-depth report. Approximately every second student was selected from an alphabetical list.

Data for the questions were coded and analysed according to the SLIM toolkit. Some of the literacy skills mentioned in the toolkit were not encountered in any of the students’ answers and were therefore not included in the analysis report. Excerpts of the students’ responses and the reasoning behind placing them within certain “literacy skill” categories have been explained for each of the students used in the sample. Details of the results of the data analysis and the interpretation of these results can be found in a later post.

References

Todd, R. J., Kuhlthau, C. C., & Heinstrom, J. E. (2005). School library impact measure (SLIM): A toolkit and handbook for tracking and assessing student learning outcomes of guided inquiry through the school library. Center for International Scholarship in School Libraries, Rutgers University.

The Students' Task

Some of the words and phrases used in the original have been changed to preserve anonymity. This is a copy of the original task as it was presented to the students. The original formatting has been removed.

ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT

 

1.

Gain an understanding of the ecological footprint concept. Go to the Ecological Footprint web site and complete the survey to estimate your ecological footprint. Explore the website to see how and where you can reduce your footprint.

2.

Identify one ‘footprint factor’ that is of interest to you on which to focus your inquiry (i.e. one factor that influences the size of your ecological footprint) and some ‘sustainability strategies’ (i.e. strategies that you, your family or local community could implement to reduce your ecological footprint).

3.

Construct a set of geographical questions to guide your inquiry and identify the research and primary data collection strategies you will use. Use this to construct a research proposal to show your teacher.

4.

Carry out research using your geographical questions to guide you. Ensure your research involves the use of both primary and secondary sources of evidence. As well as researching the ‘footprint factor’ you must identify a strategy that could be implemented (either by you and your family or more widely in the community) to reduce that ‘footprint factor’. As you carry out your research you must submit draft sections.

5.

Analyse and evaluate your results. Decide on how to present the data you have collected and decide on the strategy/solution you will present. Construct your annotated visual display (AVD) and exhibition materials for the presentation evening.

STEP ONE –GAIN AN UNDERSTANDING OF THE CONCEPT OF AN ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT AND COMPLETE THE SURVEY AT WWW.MYFOOTPRINT.ORG

This will involve working in class with your teacher who will lead you through a number of lessons introducing relevant ideas and concepts.

Some basic questions to consider.

1. What is meant by the term ecological footprint?

2. Read the FAQ section of the web site. What is meant by the following?

a) Carbon footprint

b) food footprint

c) housing footprint

d) goods and services footprint

3. How big is your footprint? How does it compare to the national and international average?

4. Compare and contrast your results with someone else in the class.

5.  What are some ways you could reduce your footprint?

STEP TWO –IDENTIFY AN AREA OF INTEREST THAT WILL BE THE FOCUS FOR YOUR INQUIRY

What does this involve?

You are required to select and focus your research on a particular ‘footprint factor’ relevant to you or your community.

How do I do this?

Consider the questions in the quiz. The ‘FAQ’ section of the myfootprint.org website has a useful explanation of the kinds of factors that influence your ecological footprint. See http://www.myfootprint.org/en/about_the_quiz/faq/

Select one ‘footprint factor’ for further investigation. Do some basic research about this ‘footprint factor’ to gain a basic understanding of how this factor impacts on a person’s ecological footprint and identify some strategies that are, or could be, used to reduce this ‘footprint factor’.

Here are some examples:

Example 1.

Mary notices in the ecological footprint survey that transport is a significant source of greenhouse emissions and that car use is one of the major contributors to this. She notices that the Ecological Footprints web site says that one way to reduce her transport footprint is to, "Walk, bike, or take public transport whenever possible." She does some research, including some ‘at home’ data collection on her family’s car use and finds out how many kilometres her family travels and how much petrol they are consuming. She then discovers that in some cities around the world (such as Seattle) the use of bicycles to travel to and from work occurs at a much higher rate than in Australia. She wonders what Australia is doing to encourage people to use bikes for commuting to and from work?

Example 2

Phoebe notices from the survey that where you obtain your food influences your ecological footprint. She does some research and discovers that most of her food is sourced outside Brisbane: some of it even comes from other countries. She sees that one of the solutions suggested on the Ecological Footprint web site is "Shop at your local farmer's market or natural foods store. Look for local, in-season foods that haven't travelled long distances to reach you." She is aware that farmers’ markets are held regularly in a nearby suburb and wonders whether these are successful and if more could be held in the city.

STEP THREE –REFINE THE AREA OF INTEREST FOR YOUR INQUIRY BY DEVELOPING A SET OF GEOGRAPHICAL QUESTIONS TO FOCUS YOUR GEOGRAPHICAL INQUIRY.

What does this involve?

To provide an initial direction for your inquiry (and to enable your teacher to evaluate your proposal) you must construct a set of “geographical” questions about the ‘footprint factor’ you have identified as your research focus. Your inquiry will focus on answering these questions.

How do I refine my research?

Time will be devoted in class to this process, stressing the importance of developing suitable open-ended as well as closed questions.

You refine your inquiry by developing a set of “geographical inquiry questions” about the ‘footprint factor’ you have identified as your focus. Geographers structure their inquiry around a particular set of questions that we refer to as “geographical questions”.

These “geographical questions” are:

What is it?(i.e. defining the issue/problem of study)

Where is it?(i.e. analysing where the issue/problem occurs)

Why is it like that? (i.e. analysing how and why the issue or problem occurs and why the particular patterns of occurrence exist)

What impact?(i.e. analysing the relationships between the problem or issue being studied and people and the environment –how they impact on each other)

How should it be managed?(i.e. what is the best way to solve the issue or reduce/control the problem?)

To refine your inquiry proposal apply these questions to your topic. As you work through the research process new questions will occur to you.

Here are some examples.

Example 1

After doing some very basic research Mary develops the following set of “geographical” questions to focus her research -What is a carbon footprint? What are greenhouse or carbon emissions and what are the main ways that transport creates emissions? Where in Australia are most transport-related greenhouse emissions created? How much petrol is consumed by driving me around? Can bikes reduce greenhouse emissions and my ecological footprint? What is the level of bike use in Brisbane/Australia and how does it compare to other cities/countries? Would my family use bikes more often? Why are bikes used less in Brisbane/Australia than in some other places? What are some ways to encourage bike use? What are other places/countries doing to encourage the use of bikes? What recommendations would I make to decision-makers such as the City Council or the State Government?

Example 2

Phoebe develops the following geographical questions to focus her research-

How does food get to the table? What types of emissions and in what quantities does food production create? What are’ food miles’? How many food miles would I be responsible for? What alternative strategies can be implemented to reduce the ‘travel time and distance’ and ‘eat local’? How could we encourage more ‘farmers’ markets’?

STEP THREE (CONTINUED) –IDENTIFY SUITABLE RESEARCH STRATEGIES YOU WILL USE TO GATHER RELEVANT INFORMATION ABOUT EACH SECTION OF YOUR INQUIRY.

What does this involve?

You need to indicate in your proposal how you will find the information you require to answer your inquiry questions. You must include primary data collection strategies as well as secondary research. There are number of primary research strategies you could use in this assessment task to gather primary data such as:



taking and using photographs



collecting and analysing statistics



conducting interviews



constructing and conducting a questionnaire or survey or an audit



direct observation

A ‘geographer’s toolkit’ is available in Masterfile.

STEP FOUR –CONDUCT YOUR INQUIRY GATHERING RELEVANT PRIMARY AND SECONDARY SOURCES OF INFORMATION. MAINTAIN A RECORD OF RESEARCH. DRAFT EACH SECTION OF YOUR INQUIRY.

What does this involve?

This involves working toward answering your inquiry questions using the research strategies you identified in Step 3 above.

As you work your way through your inquiry you are required to keep a record of your research. The Record of Research should include:

a)

all information gathered during your inquiry,

b)

completed organisers,

c)

drafts of each section of the final product as submitted to your teacher,

d)

reflection pro formas and

e)

a bibliography of the secondary sources you used.

These items help determine how effectively you have planned, organised, conducted and reflected on your inquiry.

It is also expected that as you proceed with your research and you will develop and/or refine your research focus by developing new inquiry questions and research strategies.

STEP FIVE –ANALYSE THE RESULTS OF YOUR INQUIRY. DECIDE ON THE MOST EFFECTIVE WAYS TO PRESENT THE DATA AND INFORMATION YOU HAVE COLLECTED AND CREATE YOUR AVD. PRESENT YOUR AVD AS PART OF A DISPLAY AT THE PRESENTATION EVENING.

What does this involve?

The task requires you to analyse the results of your research, communicate the results of your inquiry using a genre called an Annotated Visual Display. On this document will be relevant information and data about your ‘footprint factor’ and ‘sustainability strategy’ organised using the key questions of your geographical inquiry.

How do I make the Annotated Visual Display?

The AVD is created in Microsoft Word. It will contain a mixture of text and graphical materials (such as maps, graphs, photographs, diagrams.) arranged on two A3 pages in landscape format. Data presented will be accompanied by analysis written into a text box. Referencing and geographic conventions (BOLTSS) must be applied where appropriate.

The AVD is produced and submitted electronically. However you must print a copy to display on the presentation evening. Examples of AVDs will be shown to you by your teacher.

How do I present the primary data collected?

You need to table or graph statistics you have gathered. Questionnaire results would need to be tallied and presented in a table or graphs. Microsoft Excel and Word 2010 can be used here. Photographs need to be resized and annotated. The Social Science Research Organiser, Word 2010 and Huelab’s Fun with Mindbook can be used to present ideas in mindmaps and other graphic organisers.

Exhibition Extras

As well as your AVD you are required to construct a number of additional items that will be part of your display/exhibition. The two items listed here are compulsory. You may include other items in your exhibition.

Curiosity Box

The Curiosity Box is a container with 10 interesting, open-ended questions about your research for which you have prepared an answer. As guests view your AVD you talk to them about your ‘footprint factor’. Because the guests may know little about your topic, the Curiosity Box provides them with a question to ask you. Hopefully this will start a conversation!

Use your creativity to construct an interesting way to present your Curiosity Box.

Tokens

Tokens are small offerings you can distribute to guests on the night. It allows you to share your understanding of the sustainable strategy in an unusual way. It should be something that relates to your sustainable strategy/recommended action. Use your creativity so that you can pleasantly reward guests who spend some time at your stand.