Preface: Concept analysis utilising Piaget and Gagne's theories is an expanding area of research in the 'exact' sciences such as physics and chemistry. It is, however, new to the concepts in geography which are 'non-exact'. The thesis, then, is an exploratory study; and concept analysis is considered a possible methodology for examining the students' understanding of non-exact geography concepts. The thesis is divided into two parts. The first contains an examination of the theory of concept analysis and a critical review of empirical studies, with a view to applying concept analysis to the discipline of geography. The second part involves what has been termed a case study, where concepts are selected for analysis, and students were tested for their understanding of the concepts.

The Modifiable Areal Unit Phenomenon (MAUP) has traditionally been regarded as a problem in the analysis of spatial data organised in areal units. However, the approach adopted here is that the MAUP provides an opportunity to gain information about the data under investigation. Crucially, attempts to remove the MAUP from spatial data are regarded as an attempt to remove the geography. Therefore, the work seeks to provide an insight to the causes of, and information behind, the MAUP. The data used is from the 1991 Census of Great Britain. This was chosen over 2001 data due to the availability of individual level data. These data are of key importance to the methods employed. The methods seek to provide evidence of the magnitude of the MAUP, and more specifically the scale effect in the GB Census. This evidence is built on using correlation analysis to demonstrate the statistical significance of the MAUP. Having established the relevance of the MAUP in the context of current geographical research, the factors that contribute to the incidence of the MAUP are considered, and it is noted that a wide range of influences are important. These include the population size and density of an area, along with proportion of a variable. This discussion also recognises the importance of homogeneity as an influential factor, something that is referenced throughout the work. Finally, a search is made for spatial processes. This uses spatial autocorrelation and multilevel modelling to investigate the impact spatial processes have in a range of SAR Districts, like Glasgow, Reigate and Huntingdonshire, on the scale effect. The research is brought together, not to solve the MAUP but to provide an insight into the factors that cause the MAUP, and demonstrate the usefulness of the MAUP as a concept rather than a problem.

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From Preface: The study focusses on spatial aspects of farming and particularly how di stance from marketing centres influences farming activity. However, not all aspects of farming activity could be given close attention due to the limited time and funds available and it was decided to isolate two aspects of farming activity for detailed study, namely, farm size and intensity. Other variables, such as land-use, are looked at in relation to the two main variables. Although East Griqualand is the general area selected for study, for practical purposes it was decided to select areas within East Griqualand for an in-depth study. As the study focusses on the influence of distance from marketing centres on farming activity, it was decided to select marketing centres in East Griqualand around which farming takes place. There are six of these centres in East Griqualand, that is, Kokstad, Matatiele, Cedarville, Franklin, Swartberg and New Amalfi. Two marketing centres, Cedarville and Swartberg, were selected and the farms served by these centres became the two sub-areas in which the research was conducted. The selection of the marketing centres and the justification for this selection is discussed in Chapter Four. A problem arose when calculating the distance from the farming unit to the marketing centre where a single set of books is kept even though the farming unit does not consist of one contiguous area. It was, however, found that all farmers conduct farming operations from a central farm, usually that on which they reside and on which farming implements and other farming requirements are stored. The distance was therefore calculated from the farm gate of the farm from which farming operations are controlled. The general study area is show in Figure 6. However, it was difficult to delimit the exact study area on the map as many of the farm boundaries were imperfectly known by farmers and were considered confidential information by local agricultural officials. The two sub-areas consist of the areas surrounding the marketing centres of Cedarville and Swartberg respectively. As a study of this nature has not previously been conducted in East Griqualand, it was decided that the study should constitute a pilot survey. As such, the study is a preliminary survey aimed at identifying general trends of the relationship between distance to marketing centres, farm size and intensity of fanning in the selected areas. The study could therefore be used to provide pointers for further research and act as a basis for a more comprehensive study of the same nature in East Griqualand.