An Overview of Solving Spatial Problem
2015-S1
GGH3703
Feedback on Assignment 1
Assignment 01 required students to conceptualise a spatial problem and discuss how they will represent reality in a GIS.
The purpose of the assignment was to make students aware of how real life “things”
(phenomena) will be mapped and the implications of how we represent features and phenomena. Question 1.1: Identify a spatial problem
Most students were able to discuss and describe what makes a problem spatial.
Problems are spatial in nature when the features relate to a specific place on the earth’s surface and can be mapped. Most answers did, however, not fully address the question. Students provided generic explanations of why a problem is spatial in nature e.g. it is related to a place on the earth’s surface, but did not relate their explanation to the scenario provided. In this module (especially since online modules allow for definitions to be copied without students understanding these) you have to explain your answers by specifically referring to the question and scenario – e.g. coordinates of a single voting station can be linked to a specific place on the earth’s surface. Question 1.2: Conceptualise how this spatial problem will be represented on paper. When marking the assignment, students had to provide at least three features:
• Voting stations
• Roads
• Voting wards
Most students were able to correctly identify the three spatial features, however, several students had problems conceptualising their measurement scale and dimensionality. This highlights the fact that students do not fully understand measurement scales and dimensionality.
These features could be conceptualised in many different ways – no wrong answer.
However, student’s motivation needed to clearly indicate that they understand.
For instance, voting stations and wards could be explained as qualitative or quantitative (as the question was open for interpretation) and therefore the measurement scale could either be nominal, ordinal or ratio.
If
GGH3703
Feedback on Assignment 1
Assignment 01 required students to conceptualise a spatial problem and discuss how they will represent reality in a GIS.
The purpose of the assignment was to make students aware of how real life “things”
(phenomena) will be mapped and the implications of how we represent features and phenomena. Question 1.1: Identify a spatial problem
Most students were able to discuss and describe what makes a problem spatial.
Problems are spatial in nature when the features relate to a specific place on the earth’s surface and can be mapped. Most answers did, however, not fully address the question. Students provided generic explanations of why a problem is spatial in nature e.g. it is related to a place on the earth’s surface, but did not relate their explanation to the scenario provided. In this module (especially since online modules allow for definitions to be copied without students understanding these) you have to explain your answers by specifically referring to the question and scenario – e.g. coordinates of a single voting station can be linked to a specific place on the earth’s surface. Question 1.2: Conceptualise how this spatial problem will be represented on paper. When marking the assignment, students had to provide at least three features:
• Voting stations
• Roads
• Voting wards
Most students were able to correctly identify the three spatial features, however, several students had problems conceptualising their measurement scale and dimensionality. This highlights the fact that students do not fully understand measurement scales and dimensionality.
These features could be conceptualised in many different ways – no wrong answer.
However, student’s motivation needed to clearly indicate that they understand.
For instance, voting stations and wards could be explained as qualitative or quantitative (as the question was open for interpretation) and therefore the measurement scale could either be nominal, ordinal or ratio.
If