3.3.1, 3.3.2.1, 3.3.2.2 - Fieldwork requirements and independent enquiry

Course fieldwork and the individual investigation

The fieldwork required across the course is broader than the fieldwork for one investigation.

AQA 7037 requires four days of fieldwork during the A-level course, addressing processes in both physical and human geography. Physical work might investigate infiltration or coastal sediment; human work might investigate land use or people's experience of place. These are examples of processes and methods, not a list of assessed titles to choose from.

Fieldwork may be local or further away, on full days or part days. A residential course is one possible arrangement; several local visits are another. Your centre records what was actually undertaken and supplies its fieldwork statement by 15 May in the year of entry. For Summer 2027, that is 15 May 2027. Reading a lesson or analysing invented data cannot certify attendance or replace actual fieldwork.

The current AQA fieldwork toolkit, shared by AS 7036 and A-level 7037, additionally says fieldwork takes place outside the classroom and school grounds on at least two occasions. This is supplementary toolkit guidance alongside the formal four-day specification. It does not define how occasions within a residential visit are counted: do not translate it into a requirement for two separate trips. Check your arrangements with your centre.

An individual investigation needs a significant fieldwork element, but it may investigate human geography, physical geography, or their interaction. It does not itself have to cover both domains merely because the course-wide fieldwork must.

The decisions that belong to the candidate

Independence means making and explaining your own geographical decisions, rather than simply changing the wording of someone else's report.

You must individually define and develop the question or issue, its aims and any hypotheses. You independently choose and draw on relevant research, including field data and any secondary evidence; secondary sources must be sourced by you. You also independently contextualise, analyse and summarise findings, choose their presentation, draw conclusions and report the work. A shared spreadsheet does not make these intellectual stages shared tasks.

For example, two fictional trainees help measure the same infiltration points. One sees an apparent difference between vegetated and bare surfaces; the other notices variation within each surface. They may possess the same measurements, but each must decide what the evidence means, how it relates to theory, what uncertainties matter and what conclusion is justified. Copying a partner's graph explanation and changing a few words is not independent analysis.

Independence is therefore compatible with acknowledging help and sources. It does not mean pretending you had no teacher, equipment instruction or background reading. It means that the work assessed as your achievement reflects your own thinking under the permitted conditions.

Where collaboration is permitted

Some collaboration helps collect geographical evidence without replacing the candidate's independent enquiry.

You may explore potential investigation focus with others and collect field data or evidence as a class, group or pair. A small team can operate equipment safely, divide measurements and record the contribution of each member. Similar aims can justify shared sampling and collection. Each candidate still develops their own question and independently determines presentation, analysis and reporting.