(AY2017/2018, Sem 2) NUS GE2101: Methods and Practices in Geography

Module Title: Methods and Practices in Geography
Module Code: GE2101
Taken in AY2017/2018, Semester 2.

Lecturer: Godfrey Yeung

Components	Percentage	Grade	Marks
Statistical Exercise 1	10%		8.5/10
Statistical Exercise 2	15%		14/15
Statistical Exercise 3	15%		13/15
Statistical Exercise 4	15%	A+
Participation	10%
Final Quiz	35%

Final Grade: A+

What is it about?

GE2101 is an essential Geography statistics module. Topics covered include Chi-Square, Frequency Distributions, Survey, T-Test and ANOVA, Interview, Correlation, Questionnaire Design, Regression and etc.

     Students are assessed through four Statistical Exercises, Participation and Final Quiz. For the four statistical exercises, you will be given a week from your tutorial class to finish up a set of questions. They are generally easy, especially since you can refer to your lecture notes for it. For participation, I have no idea how students are graded for it because it is web-casted and he doesn't take your attendance for tutorials. However, I feel that he grades student based on whether they did the poll questions which he will request you to do up during the lectures. For the final quiz, it is held somewhere in week 13 and it is open-book. He gave us around 30 minutes to complete a 35 marks worth of questions and we are expected to answer it in bullet points. One of the questions, which is worth a whopping 17 marks (which translates to 17% of your entire grade), test on whether value judgement has a place in scientific research, in which you agree/disagree with your reasoning. 

Review

     Professor Godfrey is a great lecturer. He really mean it when he say he wants students to understand the content, and not just memorise and regurgitate the lecture materials. Though it is daunting to be asked to do up 35% of your entire grade in 30 minutes (around 1 minute to do up 1%), I find the final quiz do-able as long as you understand the content. 

     I did not went for any of the physical lectures (except for the first one) and skipped 2/5 tutorials. However, I did ask/answer questions when I attend the tutorial classes. I also watched all the e-lectures and did the polls questions. If you are concerned over whether you have to attend the physical lectures for the participation points, the answer is no, because I doubt I will be able to get A+ if he didn't gave me good participation points.

Ratings
4.5/5