Decision Making in Geography

What Decision Making in Geography covers

Decision making in geography is examined in Unit A2 3, Decision Making in Geography. It covers what a decision-making exercise asks of you, adopting and maintaining a role, reading maps as evidence, reading photographs as evidence, reading statistics and data as evidence, reading reports and written sources as evidence, reading infographics and diagrams as evidence, processing and presenting supplied quantitative data, interpreting and evaluating the information provided, examining conflicting values, considering alternative choices, making and justifying a recommendation on greater overall benefits and structuring and supporting the decision.

The 13 subtopics

Each one has its own page.

• What a decision-making exercise asks of youWhy an unfamiliar case study is not the disadvantage it looks, what is actually being rewarded, and how a recommendation is built from a resource booklet.Open →
• Adopting and maintaining a roleWhat a named role does and does not change about an answer, what has to stay objective whoever you are told to be, and whether a role may recommend the option it would be expected to oppose.Open →
• Reading maps as evidenceWhat to check on a supplied map before drawing anything from it, using the scale to produce evidence rather than an impression, and where a choropleth misleads.Open →
• Reading photographs as evidencePhotograph genuinely good for in a decision-making exercise and blind spots of a photograph as evidence.Open →
• Reading statistics and data as evidenceChecking a supplied table before quoting from it, why an absolute figure needs a base, per cent against percentage points, and how much weight a projection deserves.Open →
• Reading reports and written sources as evidenceWhat an extract gives that a table cannot, how provenance changes the weight a source carries, and why hedged language is worth noticing.Open →
• Reading infographics and diagrams as evidenceWhy an infographic needs more caution than the same numbers in a table, how pictograms distort a doubling, and what a transect, a flow diagram and a design drawing each support.Open →
• Processing and presenting supplied quantitative dataProcessing supplied data actually, index numbers and pie chart good for and where does it fail.Open →
• Interpreting and evaluating the information providedThe difference between working out what a resource shows and judging how far it can be trusted, what to do when two resources disagree, and why weighting a biased source beats discarding it.Open →
• Examining conflicting valuesWhat separates values from interests and facts, how stakeholders are identified systematically, and why timescale and scale produce conflict even between groups that want the same thing.Open →
• Considering alternative choicesWhat counts as a genuine alternative, why the do-nothing option is always worth examining, and how several options are compared against one standard rather than each against its own.Open →
• Making and justifying a recommendation on greater overall benefitsWhat greater overall benefits means when costs and benefits fall on different groups, why criteria come before the decision, and what mitigation and compensation add to it.Open →
• Structuring and supporting the decisionHow an extended answer is organised, what a fully worked evidence sentence contains, the language weighing actually requires, and what a conclusion has to do that the body has not.Open →

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Take Decision Making in Geography further

The same content, four other ways.

Commonly confused

Pairs that lose marks when they are blurred together.

• Role vs Recommendation

  Role: the standpoint a candidate is asked to argue from throughout. Recommendation: the choice they set out and justify at the end.

• Interpretation vs Evaluation

  Interpretation: working out what a piece of evidence actually shows. Evaluation: judging how far it supports the case being made.

Questions from this topic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

1. 1

   A decision-making exercise hands you a case study you have never studied. Why is that not the disadvantage it first appears?

   Model answer

   Because the exercise is not testing whether you know the place. Everything needed to reach a decision is supplied in the resources, so credit comes from what you do with that material: extracting evidence accurately, applying geographical understanding to it, weighing the conflicting values of the groups involved, considering alternatives and justifying a recommendation. A student who has never heard of the location can do as well as one who has, provided they read the resources closely and argue from them.

2. 2

   What is actually being rewarded when you are asked to recommend a course of action from a resource booklet?

   Model answer

   Application, analysis and evaluation of the supplied material, not recall. You gain credit for using specific evidence from the resources, interpreting it correctly, recognising its limits, examining the conflicting values held by different groups, considering the alternatives on the table and justifying the option with greater overall benefits. Recited facts about a place you happen to have studied earn nothing on their own.

3. 3

   Why does reproducing a learned case study rarely help in a decision-making exercise?

   Model answer

   Because the decision has to rest on the evidence in front of you, and a remembered scheme elsewhere has a different physical setting, different stakeholders, different costs and a different political context. Wider geographical knowledge is still useful, but only as explanation - to say why the supplied evidence behaves as it does, or why an approach has worked in comparable conditions - never as a substitute for the resources.

4. 4

   What are you looking for on a first pass through a set of resources, before you start extracting detail?

   Model answer

   Establish the geography and the question: where this is, what the physical and human setting is, what is being proposed, who is affected, and what options are on the table. Note what each resource is - map, data table, report extract, infographic, diagram, photograph - and what it is likely to be good for. Detail comes on a second pass, once you know which evidence you are hunting for.

5. 5

   How can you prepare for an exercise whose content you cannot revise?

   Model answer

   By practising the technique rather than a topic: extracting evidence quickly from unfamiliar maps, graphs, reports and photographs; converting raw figures into percentages, rates and comparisons; identifying stakeholders and the values behind their positions; setting out trade-offs; and writing a justified recommendation that acknowledges the losers. Solid understanding of geographical processes - flooding, regeneration, energy, migration, coastal management - lets you explain why the evidence looks the way it does.

6. 6

   Distinguish between describing a resource and using it as evidence.

   Model answer

   Describing restates what is there: the graph rises, the photograph shows a derelict quay. Using it as evidence means attaching the observation to a claim about the decision - the graph shows visitor numbers rising by about 40 per cent over five years, so the proposed car park is likely to be at capacity within the scheme's first decade, which strengthens the case for the larger site. Description alone is the commonest way of wasting good material.

What is inside Levo

Six ways to work the same material.

Decision Making in Geography revision questions

What does Decision Making in Geography cover in CCEA A-Level Geography?

13 subtopics: what a decision-making exercise asks of you, adopting and maintaining a role, reading maps as evidence, reading photographs as evidence, reading statistics and data as evidence, reading reports and written sources as evidence, reading infographics and diagrams as evidence, processing and presenting supplied quantitative data, interpreting and evaluating the information provided, examining conflicting values, considering alternative choices, making and justifying a recommendation on greater overall benefits and structuring and supporting the decision. Each one has its own page with questions and model answers.

How is Decision Making in Geography organised?

By the CCEA 3910 specification, subtopic by subtopic, so it matches the order you are taught it in.