Monday, 17 December 2012

Inquiry tools – What I discovered!!



Questionnaire

Links:
Survey-

Results-

“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




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