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Interpreting your Data

Here are some examples of best practice.

An example of a Level 3 response for Data Interpretation

B A

This graph shows a positive correlation: the bigger the settlement, the greater the number of services. It is quite a good relationship, as most of the points are near to the trend line. This will be because there are more people in bigger settlements and they need more services. Also, there are enough people to meet the larger threshold populations of the higher-order services.

However, there are two distinct anomalies – labelled A and B on the graph. Settlement A has a much lower number of services than would be expected for this size of settlement. This could be because it is near to another large settlement that has a very large range of services and its population use these. Settlement A could be a dormitory or commuter settlement.

Settlement B seems to have more services that its population alone could support. This could mean that it is acting like a service-centre to the local area and so the number of potential users of its services is much greater than actually live in the settlement. It might also be a tourist resort, where the numbers of visitors temporarily increases the settlement’s population.

The interpretation is alongside the graph A summary of the results is given Reference is made to anomalies

No attempt to draw line of best fit where there isn’t one!

Links text and data presentation Summary and comment about nature of relationship Explanation, showing good application of understanding Fig 1 suggest a relationship, but the points are widely scattered on the scatter graph. There is one main anomaly which is site 16, the last site. Site 16 is the Burbage Brook confluence so the channel becomes very wide and shallow because it is meeting a larger river. This widening and shallowing causes the channel to lose its efficiency.

This relationship is explained by the increasing discharge and velocity of Burbage Brook as it flows downstream, It has to carry more water, and therefore has more energy. This energy gives it the power to erode the channel and to make it as efficient as possible despite the large boulders in the channel. This relationship fits the ideal.

Conclusion relating interpretation back to aims of the investigation Further explanation, showing good application of understanding and use of terminology

Links this data with another set showing good understanding and allowing access to Level 3 As you can see from Fig 3 and Map 1, the beach material seems to be getting smaller and rounder in the same direction: east to west. If you now compare this with Fig 1 showing the direction of longshore drift this offers an explanation for this pattern as it, too, seems to be operating in and east - west direction as I predicted I my hypothesis. Therefore as longshore drift is moving material from east to west, the material is eroded through attrition to become smaller and more rounded. Good use of appropriate terms showing sound understanding

Evaluation

This should be in a separate section at the end of your report. The next slide shows how to develop your ideas to meet the criteria set out in the markscheme. You need only discuss the most important limitations of two or three of your methods.

Describe the limitations of the methods…

One of the problems with this investigation was that we only collected 5 stone samples at each site because we had a limited amount of time.

…and suggest possible ways to improve them.

It would have been better to have collected 100 at each site as this would have given us a more representative indication of the stone size. With this small number of stones, each stone’s value counts for 20% of the values at each site.

Explain how the reliability of the methods has affected the accuracy of your results…

If we had picked a stone that was considerably different from the others at that site, it would have had a significant impact on the mean size. This is likely to be the cause of the odd result at site 5, where the mean size seems to have increased, rather than decreased.

…and therefore the validity of your conclusions

Although there is an overall decrease in mean stone size from site 1 to site 20, the pattern is not as straightforward as I predicted. This could be due to the occasional odd stone being selected at each site, or it could be due to other factors. As I only have a limited number of stones for each site, it’s difficult to gauge which is the case. Further study would be necessary in order to draw firmer conclusions about the true nature of changing stone size here.