I will also be using a bi-polar analysis to compare different locations around the area during the visit. I will present the data for the bi-polar analysis in a table that has been provided by school. I will use a bi-polar-analysis because it is a good way to compare different areas around Basingstoke’s town centre and Festival Place.
When I am asking the questionnaires to the public, I will stand by the escalator closest to the station (1), outside HMV (2), outside Debenhams (3), out side Marks and Spencer (4) and outside the upper floor for BHS (5).
Map 3: Ground Floor of Festival Place Indicating Locations Used for the Questionnaire Survey (source: www.festivalplace.co.uk)
Map 4: Upper Floor of Festival Place Indicating Locations Used for the Questionnaire Survey (source: www.festivalplace.co.uk)
Results from Questionnaire
- Do you live locally to Basingstoke?
Yes: IIII
No : IIII/I
- What is the purpose of your visit to Basingstoke today?
Shopping : III
Cinema :
Sports Centre : I
Library :
Eating out : I
Meeting friends:
Work : IIII/
Other :
3. Which area will you mainly be visiting?
Festival Place: IIII/I
Town centre : IIII
- Do you think that Festival Place has had a negative impact on the existing town centre?
Yes: IIII
No : IIII/I
- Is there a bigger range of shops in either:
Festival Place: IIII/ IIII/
Town centre :
- How far do you travel to get to Basingstoke?
0-2 miles : I
3-4 miles : I
5-6 miles : I
7-8 miles : II
9-10 miles : III
11-12 miles:
13-14 miles:
15+ miles : II
- How did you travel to Basingstoke today?
Car : I
Bus : IIII/I
Taxi :
Train : I
Walking: II
Bike :
Skating :
- What age group do you fall under?
0-10 years :
11-20 years: III
21-30 years: I
31-40 years: II
41-50 years:
51-60 years: II
61-70 years:
71+ years : II
- On average, how often do you visit Festival Place?
Less than once a month: IIII
Twice a month : I
Three times a month : I
Once a week :
2-3 times a week : II
4-5 times a week :
6-7 times a week : II
- On average, how often do you visit the town centre?
Less than once a month: IIII/
Twice a month : II
Three times a month :
Once a week : I
2-3 times a week : I
4-5 times a week :
6-7 times a week : I
11.How strongly do you agree with the following statement: “The development of Festival Place has been good for Basingstoke.”
Strongly agree : IIII/
Agree : IIII
No opinion :
Disagree :
Strongly disagree: I
12.How strongly do you agree with this statement: “The development of Festival Place has drawn customers away from business in the existing town centre.”
Strongly agree : II
Agree : IIII
No opinion : IIII
Disagree :
Strongly disagree:
13.How strongly do you agree with this statement: “The development of Festival Place has improved access to services in Basingstoke.”
Strongly agree : III
Agree : IIII/I
No opinion : I
Disagree :
Strongly disagree:
Data Interpretation and Presentation.
In this section of my report I will be ‘presenting and interpreting’ my results. To present the data I will be using my questionnaire and maps, creating charts for the questions that I choose from the questionnaire, and showing the maps at the end. When I am interpreting the data, I will look at the graphs and maps and write a short paragraph about each of them.
Question 3: Which Area will you Mainly be Visiting?
From the bar graph showing which area of town people would be visiting I can see that 60% of people use Festival Place whilst the other 40% of people use the town centre. This indicates that the usage of Basingstoke is fairly even between Festival Place and the town centre. This would help to suggest that the hypothesis is false.
Question 2: What is the Purpose of your Visit to Basingstoke Today?
From the graph showing what people do in Basingstoke I can see that 20% of people definitely use Festival Place. The people answering ‘sports centre’ and ‘eating out’ demonstrate this as these facilities are restricted to Festival Place only. The people answering ‘shops’ and ‘work’ could be using either Festival Place or the town centre, and the previous question would indicate that these are split 50/50 between the two locations.
Question 4: Do you Think that Festival Place has had a Negative Impact on the Existing Town Centre.
From the bar graph I can see that most people believe that Festival Place has not had a negative impact on Basingstoke. I can see this because the graph shows me that six people, two of which where shop managers in the town centre, told me that they believed Festival Place has had a positive impact on Basingstoke. This helps to prove the hypothesis is wrong.
Question 11: How Strongly do you Agree with the Following Statement: The Development of Festival Place has been Good for Basingstoke?
This graph shows me that the development of Festival Place was good for Basingstoke because 90% of the people who I asked said that they either agreed or strongly agreed (50% strongly agree, 40% agree) and 10% said that they strongly disagree. This suggests that almost all of the public believe that the hypothesis is false because they think that Festival Place is good for Basingstoke.
Question 12: How Strongly do you Agree with the Following Statement: The Development of Festival Place has Drawn Customers Away from the Existing Town Centre?
This graph shows that the public believes that Festival Place has taken customers away from the existing town centre. The graph shows this from the fact that 60% of people believe that Festival Place took customers away from the existing town centre, the other 40% had no strong opinion, and 0% disagreed with the statement. This develops more detail from the previous question that indicates that Festival Place has been good for Basingstoke overall, but that in relation to the existing town centre the development has had a negative impact. This therefore supports the hypothesis.
Questions 9 and 10: Comparison: On Average, How Often do you Think you Visit a) Town Centre (left) and b) Festival Place (right).
This graph shows a comparison ratio between people who visit the town centre (left) and Festival Place (right). The overall distribution is balanced between Festival Place and the town centre: while those visiting less than once a month, twice a month, and once a week show a preference for the town centre by 1, this is balanced by those visiting 3 times a month, 2-3 times a week, and 6-7 times a week. This is inconclusive and does not really prove the hypothesis is true or false.
Conclusion and Evaluation.
Conclusion.
The hypothesis I was given to prove was ‘The opening of Festival Place in Basingstoke has had a negative impact on the existing town centre.’ During the time I spent analysing and questioning the area of Festival Place and the town centre in Basingstoke I found many different results that suggest that this hypothesis is true, but also some that were neutral. I used a questionnaire, a bi-polar-analysis, some key information, some facts and a conference with a manager at Festival Place.
I selected seven questions from my thirteen questions in the questionnaire that I felt were more relevant to the given hypothesis. These questions are the following:
- What is the purpose of your visit to Basingstoke today?
- Which area will you mainly be visiting?
- Do you think that Basingstoke has had a negative impact on the existing town centre?
- How strongly do you agree with the following statement: “The development of Festival Place has been good for Basingstoke?”
- How strongly do you agree with the following statement: “The development of Festival Place has customers away from business in the existing town centre?”
- On average, how often do you visit Festival Place?
- On average, how often do you visit the town centre?
Questions six and seven were used together as a comparison.
The questionnaire I had some 50/50 results; one result that found the hypothesis was true and three results that found the hypothesis was false.
I went to two different areas around Basingstoke for the bi-polar-analysis and this did not have any proof for the hypothesis.
The key information definitely makes Festival Place look good and proves the hypothesis is false; there are another 165 shops in Festival Place, a sports centre, cinema, 1000 new spaces in the car-park, a new 16 bay bus station which is in Festival Place, it has a taxi rank, there are strong cycle storage areas and it is a 2-3 minute walk from the train station. If anything, this would all bring more shoppers, tourists and commuters to Festival Place and potentially on into the existing town centre.
The specific facts about Festival Place do not tell me anything about whether the hypothesis is true or false.
Overall, from all of these results I found that the development of Festival Place was good for Basingstoke, suggesting the hypothesis to be false. Question 12 indicates that people believe Festival Place has taken some business away from the town centre, providing some support for the hypothesis. What was not been tested was whether Festival Place has actually brought in more people into Basingstoke who have then also gone on into the town centre. Overall, I believe that the bulk of the evidence does not support the hypothesis.
Evaluation.
I feel that I could have improved my coursework in many different ways. One of the most important ways would be to ask more people in the questionnaire. The sample of 10 people is statistically insignificant given the population of Basingstoke and the surrounding area. If I had asked more people the questions from my questionnaire then I would have provided results that are more representative.
Another way I could have improved my coursework is that I could have created a separate questionnaire for shop managers to answer, and I could have asked more managers both in Festival Place and in the town centre. If I had asked shop managers separate questionnaires aimed specifically at them then I could do some comparisons and get more accurate and useful results.
An additional way that I could of improved my coursework would have been to write more about the things that I did do and less about the things that I did not do. If I had done this then I would probably of done better in the things I did do and get better marks.
One very important factor that would of helped me to do better in my coursework is if I had completed it all on time and met the deadlines. I missed the deadline for the completion of the data presentation due to absence from school caused by illness. If I had done this then I would have had more time to work on it and be more relaxed and check through the work more easily and correct things.
I believe that having longer to complete the assignment would have allowed more accurate results as I could have asked more people questions and had more time to do everything. Eight hours to complete the coursework is not a very long time.
Despite of what I have said I feel that my results are fairly accurate and that they do not need improving that much. I believe this because I achieved most of the objectives that I presented in the method. Although I met most of the things I said in the method, I did not meet all of them so I could of done better if I did do all of the things I said I would have. For example, I did not take any photos and the land-use survey map that I completed did not show anything to prove the hypothesis true or false so after I realised this I did not do anything more to it.
Although I found that the hypothesis was not true, I did find some evidence supporting it. For example,
Question 3: Which Area will you Mainly be Visiting?
From the bar graph showing which area of town people would be visiting, I can see that 60% of people use Festival Place whilst the other 40% of people use the town centre. The graph shows this because it tells me that six people use Festival Place whilst only four people use the town centre. This gives evidence to support the hypothesis.
That result showed me that the hypothesis did have a slight back up to it but as there were not many more results like this and more that did not back up the hypothesis, then I believed the overall result was false.
There are several results that support the hypothesis given. For example,
Question 4: Do you Think that Festival Place has had a Negative Impact on the Existing Town Centre.
From the bar graph, I can see that most people believe that Festival Place has not had a negative impact on Basingstoke. I can see this because the graph shows me that six people, two of which where shop managers in the town centre, told me that they believed Festival Place has had a positive impact on Basingstoke. This helps to prove the hypothesis is wrong.
This helps to reject the hypothesis because it basically is asking the public of Basingstoke whether or not they agree with the hypothesis and they do not. Two of the people who answered that Festival Place has not had a negative impact on the town centre are shop managers in the town centre so this shows strong evidence that the hypothesis is false.
My conclusions may not be as accurate as possible because I only asked ten people the questions in my questionnaire. This may make them inaccurate because there are about one million people (estimate) in Basingstoke and the surrounding area, so I only have 0.001% of Basingstoke’s opinion.
“The opening of Festival Place in Basingstoke has not had a negative impact on the existing town centre.”
By Will Hooper 10SK GCSE Geography Coursework Year 10 Eggar’s School. Page of