The four
tools we have used are an interview,
a survey, a focus group and an observation. After having piloted these tools, we can now see which ones
will work best for us, or for our enquiry.
Interviews can prove vital when needing to find out more on a
particular subject. You are able
to talk to professionals about their line of work that they have are educated
in, like surgeons, chorographers, teachers and construction engineers etc.
(depending on what you want to find out more about). An interview is only with one person and one person’s
opinion can be bias. Information
in an interview can be broad and the interviewer needs to ensure that they
don’t go too far off track, information must be relevant and not to waste time. It is also a good idea to take along a
dicta-phone so that the interview can be recorded, this also ensure that words
said are correct and not taken out of context.
Surveys are a very clear indicator as to gathering and understanding
information on mass. Surveys are
easy to create (weather that be on the internet or paper based), they can
collect a large amount of information and be processed into charts and diagrams
to show your findings. This is
very important when you are looking at how things have grown/decreased over
time or finding out if peoples knowledge is as clear as you would have
originally thought. However, it is
important to have a large cross section of individuals to take the survey. If only two people take the survey,
results can be in accurate.
Information should be given willingly, and not force the person to
answer the survey, otherwise again you may get false readings. Also, surveys don’t have in depth
information about the subject being researched, it only gives a general
consensus and not a pin point answer.
However, as the survey can be cast on a large number of people, it can
give a wide range of answers, which make it a fair way to gain results. Yet, if the selection of people (in one
particular area such as staff within a school or dancers in a company) do not
send in their survey answers, how can we be sure that we have a reliable
outcome when not all the participants have entered? Also questionnaires and surveys can be web based and this
makes them a lot easier to complete.
Although this method is popular among most
work-based research, its not fully reliable, but can give you a rough idea as
to what you need to research more deeply.
One other point I would like to make is that lots of time should be
given (or a time limit) so that participants have a specific period in which to
answer as they may have busy lives, but also a time set for all questionnaires
to be submitted by, as the results will need to be collated.
Focus groups are very interesting as they highlight all areas of a
subject (that you all have in common).
It shows both sides to the story and you can really get a clear view of
the subject being discussed. One
problem is that if you all have that subject in common, it may be a tad bias as
the focus group could be discussing female pointe technique, yet all the
dancers in the room discussing it could be male dancers who have never even put
their feet into pointe shoes. I
feel it is very important to have a range of individuals in the group that are
very open minded and willing to try to understand the opposing argument.
I feel that observation is the best tool as you get to see with your
own eyes what is being done. I
believe this is why, when auditioning for jobs, the directors want to see you
dance in person, as a CV can bend the truth and even make a monkey sound like a
fabulous dancer. With seeing the
person dance, you get to see the raw talent and ability. The only draw back from observation is
that if you inform someone before hand that you are going to be observed they
behave differently? Also, in other
tools such as interviews, focus groups and surveys, information given isn’t
always reliable as it could be false, where as in observation, you are seeing
directly what is happening (Primary source). It is important that you get the ‘gatekeepers’ (person in
charge, manager or supervisor) permission for the observation. The observation can be recorded by
making notes or by video recording the session, again depending on the
gatekeepers permission.
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