15.3 Conducting a study

Cultural geography studies how humans and their societies form and develop in geographic and regional terms. As such a field, the studies of cultural geography can focus on a large variety of subjects.

You can conduct your own cultural geographical study during this course. The studies can be completed alone, in pairs, or in groups. The teacher is responsible for the specific arrangements of the study.

When conducting a study, the steps below are usually followed:
CONDUCTING A STUDY
Stage Example
Choosing a subject Forms of transportation near your school
Making a research plan Going out to monitor the road near your school, and counting the different forms of transportation (cars, buses, bicycles, etc.) for 30 minutes on three separate occasions.
Finding and evaluating literature Finding how forms of transportation have previously been studied in your home town/city.
Writing a report Writing a report that describes 1. How the study was conducted, 2. What were its findings (usually exemplified with visual diagrams, maps, etc.), 3. What was inferred about the subject on the basis of the findings. 4. How the study could be reproduced differently to gain a clearer picture of the studied subject.
Subjects:
  • Forms of transportation on different roads/streets (different groups have different streets)
  • The use of recreation areas
  • Noise near your school or your home
  • Garbage and trash near your school or your home
  • Parks near your school or your home
  • Bicycle paths and safety near your school or your home
  • The ease of use of public transportation in your home area.
In location studies, the findings are presented in the form of maps that make comparisons between different areas easy.