'An Unbelievable Academic and Personal Experience': Issues around teaching undergraduate field courses in Africa

This paper explores the teaching of geography field courses in Africa for UK university undergraduates. Using largely qualitative feedback, the experiences of students, staff and local communities involved in field courses to Kenya, Zimbabwe and The Gambia are evaluated. Benefits and disbenefits of these field courses to the participating students, the local community and teaching staff are scrutinised. The paper concludes that such field courses to 'exotic' destinations are an effective means to student recruitment and certainly achieve their aims while providing meaningful teaching and learning experiences. Furthermore, the analysis shows that field courses to 'poor' destinations in sub-Saharan Africa can avoid dangers of 'development tourism' if conducted with ethical sensitivity.     

Fieldwork@40: fieldwork in geography higher education

ABSTRACT

Fieldwork is the most powerful learning invitation in the toolkit of Geographical Education. This review of papers in The Journal of Geography in Higher Education (JGHE) suggests seven modes in the development of fieldwork. These are arrayed as a kind of historical, perhaps evolutionary, sequence but most remain current in Geography fieldwork practice. At the far end (1960s) of the sequence are didactic modes that are teacher centred and use the field as an adjunct to the classroom, in the middle (1990s) are modes that involve active learning and focus on the development of students as investigators and at the near end (2010s) are those that centred on the field study area and its qualities, that involve concern about the ethics of student engagement and that employ blended learning technologies. The review charts the JGHE’s gradual shift away from its original, almost exclusively, UK-focus toward something rather more international and inclusive. Fieldwork is where Geographers learn “from doing” Geography to “do” Geography. Its special attributes include providing experiential, sometimes transformative, learning through the immersion of the learner in the field experience. In 40 years, JGHE has helped Geography Fieldwork move from the margins of the curriculum to its current place at its core.     

Settlers unsettled: using field schools and digital stories to transform geographies of ignorance about Indigenous peoples in Canada

Geography is a product of colonial processes, and in Canada, the exclusion from educational curricula of Indigenous worldviews and their lived realities has produced “geographies of ignorance”. Transformative learning is an approach geographers can use to initiate changes in non-Indigenous student attitudes about Indigenous epistemologies and ontologies. This study explores non-Indigenous student perspectives concerning a field school and digital storytelling as transformative experiences within the context of an “Indigenous Perspectives on Environmental Management” course; they were asked to reflect on their course experience. Findings indicate that students found both to be effective and important steps in the transformation of their own worldviews.     

The Lords of War: violence,governance and nation-building in north-western Greece

ABSTRACT

The article explores the intersection between paramilitary mobilization and nation-building in the area of Thesprotia in north-western Greece. It does so by examining the activities of the right-wing paramilitaries of EDES (Ethnikos Dimokratikos Ellinikos Sindesmos – National Republican Greek League) between the Axis occupation and the early Cold War period. Studies of nation-building in twentieth-century Europe have adopted a state-centric approach. More recent scholarship has questioned this approach and presented a more nuanced picture of the nation-making process. A significant strand of this scholarship discusses the role of non-state armed actors – bandits, paramilitaries and criminal gangs – in this process. The present article contributes to this literature by focusing on an aspect of paramilitarism that has largely been overlooked in the existing scholarship: governance. The article discusses patterns of paramilitary governance and explores the impact of wartime rule in local institutions and civilian security, as well as the political legacies of paramilitarism.     

The influence of an integrated PBL format on geography students’ perceptions of their self-directedness in learning

Problem-based learning can be implemented in South African geography teacher education to foster geography students’ self-directed learning skills. The purpose of this longitudinal case study was to determine B.Ed. geography students’ (n = 45) perceptions of their self-directedness in learning in integrated problem-based learning experiences over a three-year period. The study used quantitative and qualitative research methods based on questionnaire application and semi-structured focus group interviews. The students completed a standardized questionnaire at regular intervals with the implementation of integrated problem-based learning experiences in geography modules over a three-year period. Focus group interviews with participants (n = 8) were employed to get a deeper understanding of the results of quantitative data. The results indicated that the geography students’ self-directed learning scores increased with the implementation of an integrated problem-based learning format in geography over the three-year period. The students who measured average, below average and low levels of self-directed learning at the beginning of the study had the highest increase in self-directed learning scores over the three years. The female students’ perceptions of their self-directedness in learning had higher increases in their self-directed learning scores after the problem-based learning interventions when compared to the male students.     

These are not ‘regular places’: women and gender studies classrooms as heterotopias

This article questions the transformative potential of women and gender studies classrooms through a discussion of student experiences of privilege and oppression in these spaces. Using in-depth interviews with 22 undergraduate students from two contrasting Canadian universities, this article explores how women and gender studies classrooms function as heterotopias or ‘other places’ – sites that challenge ‘regular’ places outside of the academy. Critically analyzing student experiences illustrates to how the intersections of space/location, power, and identities inform notions of privilege and oppression within these classrooms. Analysis of the participants' reflections points to how it is through these ‘other places’ that students are able to recognize identities that were once unknown to them, become conscious of their embodiments via feelings of worry and discomfort, and question their sense of place in the classroom. It is because of these findings that this research functions as a call to instructors regarding the need to prioritize student experiences, so as to be able to critically reflect upon the social and academic significance of women and gender studies classrooms.     

Is Q for you?: using Q methodology within geographical and pedagogical research

Q methodology is receiving growing interest as a research technique. Its use of factor analysis and a well-defined methodological approach may appeal to quantitative researchers who need to investigate issues more commonly associated with qualitative techniques. Such issues frequently arise when investigating student learning. This paper suggests that, appropriately used, Q is a methodology to be embraced by quantitative and qualitative researchers alike. Drawing on work within the field of education, as well as two case studies, the method's utility is illustrated, and Q is suggested as another potential method for investigating the subjective views of our students.     

Between Large-N and Small-N Analyses: Historical Comparison of Thirty Insurgency Case Studies

Abstract

The authors study the 30 insurgencies occurring between 1978 and 2008 using four methods crossing the qualitative/quantitative divide. The four approaches are narrative, bivariate comparison, comparative qualitative analysis, and K-medoids clustering. The quantification of qualitative data allows the authors to compare more cases than they could “hold in their heads” under a traditional small-n qualitative approach, improving the quality of the overall narrative and helping to ensure that the quantitative analyses respected the nuance of the detailed case histories. Structured data-mining reduces the dimensionality of possible explanatory factors relative to the available observations to expose patterns in the data in ways more common in large-n studies. The four analytic approaches produced similar and mutually supporting findings, leading to robust conclusions.     

Experiential learning through integrated project work: an example from soil science

Abstract

The planning, implementation and evaluation of an integrated soil science project are examined. The project aimed to develop a wide range of student‐centred approaches to learning, whilst promoting the development of a variety of transferable skills and personal qualities. The four project components (fieldwork, laboratory analysis, data interpretation and preparation of a written report) ran in sequence. Only the written report was formally assessed although potential developments of this system were considered. The project was implemented in the light of Kolb's cyclical model of experiential learning, and student evaluation was achieved through questionnaire analysis and group discussion.     

The Library is on Fire,Now What? Assessing the Damage and How to Approach It: A Case Study from the Chesapeake Bay

ABSTRACT

The Longwood Institute of Archaeology conducted the Vulnerability, Potential and Condition (VPC) assessment of shoreline archaeological sites along 1990 km (1237 miles) of the Chesapeake Bay in Virginia. VPC assessment involves a three-pronged approach that includes (1) the assessment of site vulnerability due to changing shorelines using an analytical package called Analysing Moving Boundaries Using R – AMBUR, (2) the assessment of potential shoreline site locations through predictive modelling using Weights of Evidence – WofE – analysis, and (3) the assessment of current conditions of known sites through direct observation. Vulnerability assessment results indicated that 49% of site shorelines in the project area are moving landward. Potential assessment located high-probability site locations with an 83% efficiency. Condition assessment, conducted using standard field protocols, provided feedback of the sites’ current conditions. The intended outcome of this method is to provide resource managers with information needed to make informed, data-driven management decisions.     

Student geographies and homemaking: personal belonging(s) and identities

Studies of the ‘geographies of students’ have become increasingly prevalent across the social sciences and are particularly concerned with the predilection for young UK University undergraduates to be mobile in their institutional choice. A more recent focus within this work has been upon student identities, with attention given to how the spaces to which students move and in which they settle can have both positive and negative consequences for the evolution of the student identity, and how such identities are often framed within the context of social activities; learning environments; friendship networks; or other sociocultural factors. This paper contributes to these discussions by considering the role of student accommodation – a site which often remains on the periphery of discussions of student identities – in offering students opportunities to construct, adapt and manage their student identities. This adds to the important contemporary geographies of student accommodation, which are currently debating, among others, purpose-built student accommodation and the broad housing ‘careers’ and strategies of students. In contrast, this paper explores the micro-geographies of student accommodation (and more specifically, the bedroom) to highlight its value in providing young, mobile students with an anchor within which they can draw together their learner, social and domestic dispositions into one geographical location.     

Engaging Students in the Learning Process: The learning journal

This paper explores the usefulness of the learning journal as a means of actively engaging students in the learning process, based on a case study of a third-year undergraduate geography course. After briefly reviewing the literature on journal writing in different contexts, the paper outlines the approach adopted in the new geography course, in which students were given guidelines on how to write a journal that would be assessed as part of the course. Extracts from students' journals for this course are used to illustrate how they approached the task, and how they viewed the experience. It is concluded that the learning journal has good potential to increase student interest in and engagement with course material, to encourage and empower students to take more responsibility for their own learning, to be more reflective in their study, and to allow them to have a voice and provide valuable feedback to the teacher.     

Undertaking a Dissertation from Start to Finish: The Process and Product

Advocates for using a geographic information system (GIS) in education assert that GIS improves student learning. However, studies to clarify the relationship between learning and using GIS are still needed. This study examines the effects of using Web-based GIS maps in place of paper maps on students' geography content knowledge and motivation (self-efficacy) when taking college-level introductory human geography (N = 171). Hierarchical regression analysis shows that using Web-based GIS is positively related to post-test self-efficacy and post-test geography content knowledge.     

The Effectiveness of Internet-based Instruction: An experiment in physical geography

Geographers increasingly use the Internet as an instructional tool in higher education. The effect of Internet-based instruction on learning, however, is essentially unknown. This research involves a matched-pairs experiment that assesses the differences in student performance between a group of students taking an Internet-based lesson in introductory physical geography, and another group learning the same material via traditional classroom methods. Both groups were subject to the same knowledge assessment post-test, and scores were statistically analysed to determine whether one instructional method led to better student performance over the other. Results show that the Internet can be a viable alternative instructional tool compared with traditional classroom methods.     

Drawing the line with Google Earth: the place of digital mapping outside of geography

The Te Kawa a Māui Atlas project explores how mapping activities support undergraduate student engagement and learning in Māori studies. This article describes two specific assignments, which used online mapping allowing students to engage with the work of their peers. By analysing student evaluations of these activities, we identify four aspects that benefit student engagement: mapping diversifies the learning experience; mapping promotes acquisition of a different skill set; online mapping allowed more open sharing of work and; mapping promotes place-based learning. Some students were ambivalent about the assignments, so mapping should only be used to support other learning objectives.     

PRODUCING GEOGRAPHICAL KNOWLEDGE THROUGH VISUAL METHODS

The tradition of using qualitative interviews in the study of everyday life, place and identity in geography, housing studies and related disciplines is a long and sound one. Recently there has been increasing interest in using visual methods as part of qualitative methodological approaches. Through our own empirical work, this article explores one position in visual methodology, which suggests visual methods as a way of in a sense getting closer to the lived life. Drawing inspiration from qualitative methodology and performative perspectives in geography, this article argues that this position overlooks the ways in which the visual – here photography – can also be seen as performed. Based on the authors' experiences with visual methods in fieldwork in housing areas in greater Copenhagen, and using both informants' and researchers' photographic work, the article shows how a performative perspective on photography can be used in qualitative research in geography.     

‘It’s fun in the legs’: children’s dwelling in garden trampolines

ABSTRACT

Physical activity is critical for children’s current and future health status. Understanding how children’s everyday outdoor environments encourage movement could help progress the health-environment debate. In response to this, and adopting a theoretical focus upon dwelling, skills and the haptic engagement, this qualitative case study explores 25 Danish 10–11-year-old children’s everyday use of garden trampolines. Three principal methods of data generation were employed in the fieldwork: photo-elicited interviews, group interviews and participant observation at children’s important outdoor places. Findings suggest that garden trampolines are important everyday outdoor places for children that – among other things – can spark a vigorous physical movement in abundantly meaningful and joyful ways. Further, findings indicate that trampolines are places of inexhaustible movement opportunities, which operate through haptic sensations, feelings of skilfulness and attunement, expansions of the range of motions available to the body, and interactions between children. Implications for future research and design are highlighted.     

Assessing Prehispanic Herding Strategies through Stable Isotope Analysis: A Case Study from the Dry Puna of Argentina

ABSTRACT

The main goal of this work is to study the camelid herding and management strategies employed by the human groups that occupied the Dry Puna of Argentina during the late Holocene. Carbon and nitrogen stable isotope compositions were measured on bone collagen from domesticated South American camelids (llamas: Lama glama) recovered at two archaeological sites (Huirunpure and Chayal Cave). These results were interpreted using an already published data set of δ ¹³C and δ ¹⁵N values measured on bone collagen from modern herds of llamas managed in a traditional way. Our results showed that even though the archaeological sites of Huirunpure and Chayal Cave are located within different settings – at 4020 and 3700?masl respectively – and present different chronologies – 0–650 and 1300–1500 CE respectively – the llamas from both sites exhibit similar δ ¹³C and δ ¹⁵N values. This pattern was explained considering the characteristics of the vegetation communities that grow in the vicinity of both sites as well as the paleoenvironmental records of the Andean highlands. In sum, this work presents and discusses some preliminary results on the study of prehispanic herding practices in the Dry Puna of Argentina during the first 1500 years of the Common Era through stable isotope analysis.     

The Turnover Club: locality and identity in the North Staffordshire practice of turning over ceramic ware

This paper explores a key practice adopted by those local to or from Stoke-on-Trent, and outlines its significance in the wider context of ‘ordinary’ consumption and material cultures, globalisation and local identity. Being a ‘turnover-er’ – someone who always turns over pottery to check whether it is Stoke-on-Trent ware – is an oft practised, but little examined part of the living heritage that connects those with affinity to ‘the Potteries’ (as the region is known) and its ceramic ware. The project set out to explore qualitative accounts of turning over and to gauge its salience and reach as a practice, linking this to broader accounts of material culture, consumption and heritage. We carried out 20 interviews with those who turn over or who have an interest in local ceramics, and an online survey (n = 500) which explored the some of the reasons for turning over. Findings indicate the strong connections established by the practice of turning over to local identity, both inherited and adopted, and further indicates the social salience and emotional attachments to the meanings of local ware.