1. Field TripTo complete this assignment, you will collect ‘prim.docx
- 1. 1. Field Trip To complete this assignment, you will collect ‘primary’ research data before, during and after a personal travel experience. You will need to systematically study this primary data that will be in the form of a record of a personal travel experience - not necessarily a long trip, but a travel experience nonetheless. Remember: · You must do this travel specifically for the assignment to keep the travel journal which then contains the primary data. · The trip should be started by the first non-teaching break if possible because of its use in tutorials (for internals). You all know that most tourism definitions accept an overnight component and about 40 km from home as qualifying for the label ‘tourist’. Keeping in mind this definition, select a trip or tour of some sort, or design and take yourself off on one of your own makings. Or, you might travel ‘home’ to visit your family or old friends (VFR travel). You can travel alone or with friends, other students or family members. Doing it with other students in this unit can be very interesting. The ‘passport’ definitions of tourism (overnight, across borders, 40 km, etc.) are unsatisfactory for thinking about what people do and why they do it. This is one place where the separation of leisure from tourism is problematic because most of the travel we are studying is leisure travel. While it is debatable whether your trip for this assignment is ‘work’, i.e. for an assignment, it will have leisure components. Maybe the first thing you should do is go to a travel office and look at the brochures. Or find something relevant on the Internet. Talk to family and friends for ideas. Think about where you’d like to go and about the constraints you face in deciding where to go. Start recording in your Travel Journal as you do this. An early tutorial requires that you have some brochures or Internet printouts relevant to your field trip and
- 2. that you can use them in class. This is also an intellectual exercise because you have to conceptualise, research and analyse the tourism issues extant at your destination and the route you take travelling there and back. Like all tourist sites, there are social, cultural, environmental and economic issues to be dealt with. Study Tip #2: What are Some of the Ethical Considerations as a Social Scientists? All research involves ethical considerations, whether it be research with inanimate objects, non-human animals or human subjects. In this unit, you will be undertaking a number of activities which are ‘research’ oriented, and you will thus have to be careful about ethical issues. Because you are not asked to directly involve other people, the ethical concerns are easier to deal with. That is, it is not expected that you will conduct experiments or survey people with interviews or questionnaires. However, most of you will engage in participant observation so will have to take care not to invade privacy or otherwise cause potential harm or distress to others. See Appendix C to learn more about ethical considerations in relation to conducting social research such as a field trip. Notes for Students at Singapore Campus (Kaplan): To make this journey appropriate for Singaporean students the requirement to travel at least 40km away from home has been adjusted. Now, you are still expected to take an overnight trip away from home but flexibility has been brought in regarding the distance travelled. However, you MUST discuss your choice of destination with your lecturer and gain his approval for the destination you have chosen. 2. Field Journal (as part of Appendices)
- 3. The field journal is important as a record of your primary data, that is, to keep track of specific issues while on the field trip itself. But, in addition, you should begin writing in it well before departure so that you can also record the process of anticipation. While writing in the journal, you should begin to develop a feel for your research questions, what it is that you are asking of your research, what it is you are trying to answer in doing this research. This journal should be submitted as an appendix to the field report and must be on the sheet(s) provided. Besides being a record of your field trip preparation and the actual trip, this learning journal will be reflective and ‘critical’; it includes your motivation. Include photos, drawings, maps and your rough written journal as appendices to the essay. Remove any private entries if you wish, but retyping of the journal is not required. You are required to include at least the following items in the journal: 1. a map of the journey: This should be an extract (original or photocopy) from a published map of the area through which you travelled. Be sure to include the publisher in the list of references. 2. at least three brochures: These brochures (including online brochures or websites relevant to areas through which you travelled) must 'inform' about actual events in which you took part or places that you went. If you are using online sources be sure to include the URL on the extract and a full reference in the list of references. 3. proof of travel: this could be air/bus/train tickets with your name and travel dates, and/or receipts for any purchases made during your field trip. At the very least, the proof must consist of a date and location, so it objectively proves that you did travel during the study term. Your lecturer/coordinator may require you to provide further documents if the proof is deemed insufficient. This field trip is a form of social research called ethnography, so the journal is a record of both the primary data of your own experience and of the secondary material you collect during
- 4. your research before, during and after the trip. (‘Primary’ and ‘secondary’ are technical terms in social research, and we suggest you look up the terms in a research book such as Sarantakos’s Social Research or Babbie’s The Basics of Social Research). This component may be written in the first person and can express 'opinions' and personal reflections. What are appendices? Appendices (or an appendix section) are additional items/information that you insert at the end of your essay, after the reference section. Items you could add in the appendix section in academic essay include photos, illustrations, tables, and any other pieces of information that are relevant to the topic but not something that you want to add in the main text of your essay. Have a look at the page below to learn how format appendices according to the APA style: How do I do an APPENDIX in APA style? (Rasmussen College, 2018) - http://rasmussen.libanswers.com/faq/33090 3. Ethnographer’s analytical essay The specific objectives of the ethnographer’s analytical essay are to: find and use relevant research and theoretical literature; use field data (primary and secondary); use theory and other research to analyse the field data you have recorded and written an extended analytical account using an essay style format. Further, it should address the following points: · It must address the tourism (and other relevant) issues facing the site and the immediate surroundings. Your site is the 'case study' you will use in your essay. · It should be reflexive. That is, as you will have also been a tourist, you as an individual have had to reflect on the experience in your Ethnographer's Field Journal. You will need to analyse it and write about it. Included here are your own experiences; what you learned from the field trip experience.
- 5. The academic literature will provide you with the models and theories to undertake this analysis. The field work was your primary data collection method. · The essay will be read as a stand-alone piece of work so key information about the field work should be included as an Appendix and as suggested below as part of the analysis. · It should review literature relevant to the field trip, including models useful for analysis of the site, the journey and your experience/motivation as a tourist. Think of yourself as a tourist who has made a specific selection of a trip. Why did you choose this specific trip? · It should not be written in the first person. However, you may choose to write part or the whole of your essay in the first person if you believe it is more appropriate for your essay. It is still unconventional but increasingly more accepted to write in the first-person style in academic writing especially in the social science fields. However, caution must be exercised! You need to ensure that your essay is written for an academic audience, not a general audience. If you choose to use the first- person style, I suggest that you look at academic papers that is written in the first-person style to learn how it is done. I have listed two examples below: · Larsen, J. (2014). (Auto)Ethnography and cycling. International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 17(1), 59–71. doi:10.1080/13645579.2014.854015 · Pearce, P. L. (2005). Professing tourism: and change leaders. The Journal of Tourism Studies, 16(2), 21–33. · It must be fully referenced using the APA (6th) referencing style. One of the crucial elements in your approach to this assignment is having a research question. However, given the ethnographic nature of this assignment, you may arrive at your research question post hoc, that is, after you've been in the field. Working up a research question even after the trip is finished will help you toward the development of an argument in the essay that you then write to analyse your field trip and field
- 6. journal. See Appendix B (Field Trip Guidelines) for more information about the Field Trip Assignment. Study Tip #3: How do I structure my essay? Here is a suggested outline structure for your essay. The suggested word lengths of each component are just that, rough suggestions. You don’t have to use this structure in this order but do need to cover the main content areas specified below. Be sure to develop your main points in the introduction and to use transitional markers or connective words/phrases to link ideas and sections as you progress towards the conclusion. 1. Introduction: Here you would outline the main points and introduce what the essay covers. Introduce the reader to what it all means, what you are going to tell us, your theme or argument (about 75-200 words). 2. Literature review (content/body): You can’t effectively analysis your case study (site, travel, etc.) without using the research and theorising of others. The weekly readings, along with other books and articles you obtain, will contain ideas and models that you can use to help understand your trip. In this section, you introduce those aspects of the literature most useful for your particular trip (about 350-600 words). 3. The trip itself/method and results (content/body): This is where you report on your case field trip: you should describe the essential aspects of the trip, the experience of the trip, the destination, mode of transport, etc. Use tables or appendices to provide details such as site maps, the timetable of travel, relevant brochures (only ones you use in the analysis), etc. (about 300-500 words). 4. What it means/discussion and analysis (content/body): This is where you apply the theories, models, etc. you extract from the literature to analyse the trip, destination, experience, motivation and so forth (about 550- 800 words). 5. Conclusion: This is where you draw together the main points and the site and give the reader the final word on meaning. You
- 7. can also mention questions still to be answered, research still to be done – your hunches, suspicions, uncertainties, etc. You can also say something about how you’ll approach travel in the future (about 100- 200 words). Need more information? There are also a range of interactive learning modules in relation to academic (or essay) writing, field research methods and literature review on the LMS page. You should take full advantage of these flexible learning tools to develop your academic writing skills.