Enquiry skills and fieldwork

1 Enquiry skills and fieldwork

The development of an enquiry-based approach to learning across the Geography curriculum through the 1980s stimulated its adoption in the context of fieldwork. Hart and Thomas (1986: 205) believed that the adoption of such an approach ‘strengthens and enhances the value of fieldwork … and makes it an essential, natural ingredient of all work in geography’. In particular they suggested that ‘meaningful fieldwork … seeks to find answers to pertinent questions about the many ways in which people interact with the various environments in which they live and work’ (ibid.: 205).

The concept of enquiry-based learning is that pupils and students learn most effec- tively by structuring that learning around key questions (Slater 1982). The approach has been formalised in a number of designated sequences of enquiry, as for example in

Fieldwork in the school Geography curriculum 171 the ‘Route for Geographical Enquiry’ developed by the ‘Geography 16–19’ Project in

the UK in the 1980s (see Naish et al. 1987). Roberts (1996), however, has stressed that a number of different approaches to the design of teaching and learning can be adopted which conform to the idea of enquiry-based learning. In particular she distin- guishes ‘closed’, ‘framed’ and ‘negotiated’ styles which represent progressively a move away from teacher-controlled learning. A ‘closed’ approach to learning involves the enquiry questions and the enquiry methodology being generated by the teacher with the ‘findings’ and knowledge outcomes tightly under the teacher’s control. A ‘framed approach’ involves the teacher providing ‘limits’ on the nature and format of the investigation, but negotiating some components with pupils. A ‘negotiated’ approach involves pupils deciding what questions they want to investigate that are of concern and interest to themselves, under guidance from the teacher, whose role is to provide guidance and support as the pupil identifies appropriate data and analytical approaches and reaches his or her own interpretations.

The adoption and encouragement of ‘enquiry’ within fieldwork is now widespread in the UK, Australia and New Zealand (Foskett 1997; Richardson 1998), and is beginning to emerge as an important approach elsewhere, for example in the USA, South Africa, China and Hong Kong (Bednarz 1999; Wilmot 1999; Zhang 1999; Lai 1999). The use of fieldwork-based enquiry by individual students as part of formal summative assessment has also developed strongly, indicating that such individual enquiries provide an appropriate indicator of a student’s geographical understanding and skills. To support this latter development the importance of building progression into the use of such enquiry skills as a pupil is underlined by Foskett (1997) and by Bland et al. (1996). Such progression might develop from closed enquiry with younger pupils, through framed enquiry, to negotiated enquiry with pupils in the upper part of secondary school. Roberts (1996: 91–102) provides examples of each type of enquiry, which indicate how progression in the development of enquiry skills might be struc- tured through the Geography curriculum:

Closed enquiry Teaching shopping hierarchies through fieldwork. The teacher chooses the focus of the fieldwork, and devises a list of hypotheses to be tested and questions to be investigated, which are given to the pupils. The teacher chooses the shopping centres in which the work will be undertaken, designs the pupils’ questionnaire and chooses the sample structure and size. The teacher collects in the data, collates it, selects appropriate graphing methods, and gives the pupils instructions on drawing the graphs. The conclusions are devised by the pupils in response to directed questions from the teacher.

Framed enquiry Choosing a development site for a computer component company. Pupils are divided into groups charged with choosing the best location for a new factory in an urban area. The initial enquiry question is posed by the teacher, and background information on the sites and the company is also provided by the teacher, but the pupils must decide what other questions to ask and what information they must obtain during site visits through fieldwork. The teacher has decided that pupils must use ratings of different criteria to make their

172 Teaching Geography in secondary schools decision, but pupils must choose the criteria and the rating scale. Pupils present

their findings to the whole class, who decide as a whole which site to choose. Negotiated enquiry Choosing an Individual Enquiry at A level. An individual

student must choose a topic for study, generate questions and a methodology, then analyse and interpret the data. The teacher, in discussion, listens to the range of possible ideas and, by questioning, helps the student frame appropriate enquiry questions. The student chooses to consider the issue of the construc- tion of a new supermarket near to his home.

The development from closed to negotiated enquiry may also, of course, encom- pass increasing challenge in relation to the types of fieldwork techniques that can

be applied. Furthermore, the skills being developed are generic, and may be applied across the Geography curriculum and be transferred to other curriculum areas.