Your Fieldwork Approach for 2027: Change Over Time and Sphere of Influence
This lesson explains the methodology and conceptual framework set for your exam year, using the specification’s own example enquiries. The actual sites, data and results your class collected will be different — when you write about your own fieldwork in the exam, use your own enquiry’s details, not the examples given here.
Your 2027 Fieldwork Focus: Change Over Time and Sphere of Influence
Not every possible fieldwork approach is tested every year. Two years before each exam series, your exam board names one methodological approach from Table A and one conceptual framework from Table B. Part A of the exam paper is set on that year’s methodology; Part B is set on that year’s conceptual framework.
For the 2027 exam series, the named pair is ‘change over time’ (Part A) and ‘sphere of influence’ (Part B). Other exam years use a completely different pair — 2026 students revise qualitative surveys and cycles and flows, 2028 students revise transects and place — but if you are sitting the exam in 2027, only change over time and sphere of influence appear on your paper, so that is all this lesson covers.
For the 2027 series, Part A of the exam assesses change over time as a fieldwork methodology. Part B assesses sphere of influence as a conceptual framework. You still need the six-stage enquiry process from earlier lessons — this lesson tells you which lens to apply it through.
Change Over Time: Comparing Now with Then
Change over time is a fieldwork methodology built on comparison. You collect primary data in the field today, then set it against secondary data recorded at an earlier point — sometimes years earlier. The gap between the two data sets is the evidence of change.
The specification lists four kinds of change-over-time enquiry: comparing current retail patterns against historical data from a previous year; comparing weather recorded over several days against data for the same period in an earlier year; comparing current river or coastal landforms against historical evidence from maps or photographs; and comparing land use today against land use at an earlier date in an urban or rural area.
Retailing and land-use enquiries ask whether shops, services or the way land is used have shifted — more takeaways, fewer banks, a new housing estate where fields used to be. Weather enquiries ask whether conditions this week match the same week in an earlier year, using your own readings against archived records.
Landform enquiries ask whether a river channel, cliff or beach has moved or changed shape, using your own survey against old Ordnance Survey maps or photographs. In every case the comparison only works if the earlier evidence covers the same location.
Secondary sources that support this methodology include historical maps, old aerial or oblique photographs, large databases such as National Statistics, and GIS data sets like those held by the Environment Agency. You do not collect these yourself — you locate them and use them as the ‘then’ half of the comparison.
Designing and Judging a Change-Over-Time Enquiry
A fair comparison matches like with like. The site must be the same location, ideally the same time of year, and measured using a method as close as possible to the original. If your class measured pebble size with callipers at ten points along a beach, the historical data you compare it with should describe a similar site and a similar method — otherwise any difference you find could be down to the method, not real change.
Old data has limits. It may be less accurate than data collected with modern equipment, it may have been recorded by someone with a different purpose or bias, and there may be gaps in coverage. When you write about your own enquiry, name the specific limitation rather than just saying the data is ‘unreliable’.
Common limitations of change-over-time comparisons include: the historical source may have used different units or equipment; the exact location may not match precisely; and short-term weather or seasonal effects on the day of your fieldwork can be mistaken for long-term change.
Sphere of Influence: Reach and Impact
Sphere of influence is a conceptual framework, not a data-collection method. It asks how far the reach or catchment of a place, event or feature extends, and what impact that reach has — good and bad — on the people and places within it.
The specification lists five kinds of sphere-of-influence enquiry: the reach of a larger urban area over its rural hinterland; the positive and negative externalities of a major event such as a county show or a sporting venue; the visitor pressure created by a honeypot site; the impact of a distinctive landscape feature; and the impact of a river catchment on flood risk.
Urban hinterland and honeypot enquiries both measure reach by tracing where users come from — shoppers, commuters or visitors — and how far they travel. Event and venue enquiries measure externalities: extra trade for local businesses is a positive impact, extra traffic or litter is a negative one.
Landscape-feature and river-catchment enquiries measure impact on the surrounding area — footpath erosion around a scenic viewpoint, or flood risk downstream of a catchment. All five ask the same underlying question: how far does the influence of this place or feature spread, and who or what does it affect?
Designing and Judging a Sphere-of-Influence Enquiry
You measure extent by tracking where people or effects originate — for example, recording where visitors to a site have travelled from, or how far commuters journey into an urban area. The further the origin points spread, the larger the sphere of influence.
You measure impact by identifying effects and sorting them into positive and negative. A honeypot site might bring in useful income for local shops (positive) while eroding footpaths and increasing litter (negative). A strong answer links the specific impact you found back to the concept of sphere of influence, rather than describing the impact in isolation.
Writing About Your Own Fieldwork
In the exam, refer to the enquiry your class actually carried out, using the six-stage vocabulary from earlier lessons — question, primary and secondary data, sampling, presentation, analysis, conclusion. For Part A, frame your answer around change over time: what you measured now, what secondary evidence you compared it with, and what the comparison showed. For Part B, frame your answer around sphere of influence: what reach or catchment you investigated and what impacts you found.
The same evaluative questions apply to both parts of the paper. Was your primary data accurate and reliable? Could bias have affected your secondary sources or your own results? What are the limitations of your methods, and how confident are you in your conclusion? Answer these using details from your own enquiry, not from the specification’s example enquiries.