Critical Reflection on module 2

I am going to look at module two, explaining what I have gained, the ideas that have become present in my studies and my experiences I have had exploring the three readers.

Developing lines of professional inquiry

When reflecting on Reader 4 I thought deep into where I am going. I have so many avenues to explore being at the beginning of my career. I shared all my thoughts; (Appendix A). Little did I know that a lot of the questions and inquiries that I had linked together. Even though my phone calls to Paula were few and far between due to my circumstances, I was always able to feed of her to define my questions. Realising this I made it a regular thing to discuss my progress and get ideas from the cast I am currently working with.

Due to the limited Internet and also the storm “Sandy” I did find this module a struggle; (Appendix C). I wanted to share all the ideas I had and my views on others blogs. I tried to do this as much as I could, by saving peoples blogs to my computer and writing out a reply for when I could get connected was very beneficial. So many people had good ideas and comments that would help me progress. (Appendix D)

Professional Ethics

I never realised the depth of ethics; personal, professional, organizational and social, that’s a lot to take onboard. However the more I read and researched the more I realised it was common sense. In the world we live in, it’s nature and nurture for the majority to be brought up in an ethically correct society.

My personal ethics were something I had to reflect on continuously. My ethics are just something that I do everyday they become nature and it was difficult to clasp the idea of them being virtues that I have. When you work for a company they have there own rules that you should follow but that still allows you to have your own - (Appendix E). Within my inquiry I need to follow the ethics of the company I will be working with, also considering age and consent as well as me personally.

Tools of professional inquiry

This is all about trial and error. When piloting the tools I gained unnecessary information, inaccurate statistics (Appendix F) and was under prepared. When I looked back I needed structure for even the paper that I take the data down on. I need to ask the questions that are going to get the answers on the information I lack (Appendix G)

I now feel a lot more confident in myself for when I have to use these tools in my inquiries. I feel I made all the mistakes to insure they will not happen again.  Listening back to the interview the more confident I became the more information I got from the participant. From everything I have learnt from Module 1 and Now Module 2 I feel I am ready to conduct an ethically correct inquiry using the tools I have to their full potential.

Inquiry tools – What I discovered!!

Questionnaire

Links:

Survey-

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/YMPSM9C

Results-

file://localhost/Users/kimberlyjane-/Documents/SurveyMonkey - Survey Results.webarchive

“the purpose of the survey is to produce statistics, that is, quantitative or numerical descriptions about some aspects of the study population”

I certainly got statistics from my survey however they were not correct. If you answered question 2 with “yes” you should have then answered question 3.

22 people answered yes so there should have been 22 people answer question 3 however I got 24 answers as you can see from my results. Due to the misinterpretation I had incorrect data. I would not be able to justify using this.

The majority of people that answered my questionnaire went to the same school as myself. I got very similar data. Could this be bias?

Quantity over quality, it was difficult to get people to even fill in the survey. People don’t have time to spare nowadays, even getting friends to do you a favor and pilot it for you.

You can’t get the “why” in! I wanted to ask the four people why they didn’t think that acting would contribute to their performance skills but I never got the chance.

Interview

First of all I received permission from the participant to conduct the interview then also asked if they were happy for my to record.

Preparation is vital. I did not have enough questions. Even though the conversation flowed and I was able to ask “why” and get in depth answers and follow up on things that interested me I could have had more planned. I felt that I did not maximize the time and opportunity.

I recorded that the interview so I could listen back to it and take down the necessary information.

I found this beneficial and was able to gather a lot of interesting information.

Observation

It was hard to get my head around whether I was being bias or not. Paula described it as my interpretation, which made it become a little clearer. Again with all the inquiry tools preparation is the key. You need to be clear of what you are looking for, have a clear structure of how you are going to get it on to paper. It is very easy to get sidelined onto other subjects as one thing leads to another. However it is very interesting to actually focus on one thing and see what becomes apparent. I trialed both participating in the observation and also being an insider. It depends on what you are researching to which one is most beneficial. For my question at the time was; what makes a good performer? I think both were just as good and I got the results that I needed.

Focus Group

This was the most useful tool that I used for my particular question. I found that everyone feed off each other and I got a lot of great ideas and answers. I did not record the focus group and I wish I had. I found it extremely difficult to write everything discussed. I was asking people to repeat themselves, if I had recorded it I could have gone back later. It also was restricting my chances at being part of the group, I could have kept the conservation flowing in the right direction as well as delving deeper into peoples thoughts. When researching this method I found the “long table approach” which I could use once the conversation had been written down. You can the cut up to conversation and sort the answers in categories of questions and topics. I did not use this tool to its full potential however I got some great results.

Overall

The key is Preparation.

Plan how you are going to record Data.

Use Memory, Field Notes, Flip charts, Drawings and Audio Recoreder.

Develop and Finalise good Questions.

Have Key Words.

Summarise the end.

Be systematic.

Have a Process and be able to describe it to others.

Know where to look for Information.

Have the right Resources.

Know your audience