ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests that scale obtrudes into geographical research in three main ways: in the problem of covering the earth’s surface; in the problem of linking results obtained at one scale to those obtained at another; and in standardizing information that is available only on a mixed series of scales. One of the characteristic features of geographical research is its concern with a particular scale of reality. The scale coverage problem is simple and immediate. There is an important difference between the attempts to use sampling to circumvent the scale problem, and the way in which sampling is being used in research. This essential difference is between purposive and probability sampling. Every change in scale will bring about the statement of a new problem, and there is no basis for assuming that associations existing at one scale will also exist at another’.
