After reading the course reader and some of the references, I carried out this task in almost the reverse order to the list in the task summary. The order I used was observation, interview, focus group and survey.
I wanted to make the task as relevant to my inquiry as possible, and in the first place critically reflected on the nature of the process, which my current touring performance is a part of. The purpose was to identify the parties involved in the process and the part each one plays.
The parties I identified are-
* my employer “Image Musical Theatre”
* the staff of the schools where we perform
* other members of my cast
* the parents of the children at the schools
* the children in the audience
* the children selected to take part in the performance
For the pilot work I wanted to focus on the children, who should be the main beneficiaries of the whole effort. It is my intention to cover all the above parties in the full inquiry.
1. I started by observing the reactions of the children at each stage in visits to schools. On the basis of the observations I thought of a number of questions, which I piloted with a member of my cast and a teacher.
2. I have already posted blogs about the pilot interviews I have undertaken.
3. The next step was to form a pilot focus group to review the outputs from the pilot interviews, and to formulate a short questionnaire covering a small part of my inquiry subject. The purpose was to check if open questions are as appropriate as closed questions in the context of my inquiry.
4. The pilot survey, which I then carried out on a mixed group, showed that it would be necessary to use both forms of questions in order to obtain both qualitative and quantitative data for my inquiry. It would be best to design different but related questions for each of the parties.
Pilot questionnaires
Children in the audience
1. Did you enjoy the play?
2. What did you like most ?
3. Why did you like it the most?
4. Was there anything about the play you did not like?
5. Why did you not like it?
6. Did you understand the play?
7. What do you think it was about?
8. Would you like to see another play soon?
Children in the play
1. Did you enjoy being in the play?
2. What did you like most about that?
3. Why did you like it the most?
4. Was there anything you did not like about being in the play?
5. Why did you not like it?
6. Would you have liked it better to just watch the play?
7. Did you understand the play?
8. What do you think it was about?
9. Would you like to see another play soon?
Interesting. At this point work with other students on the course, that way you don't run into ant issues about consent. DO NOT work with any children until you have the universities approval for the inquiry which will be the next module. But if you plan to talk to children I recommend you do some research into the ethics of this. Look at the pros and cons of it. Also the dangers and influences. Seems like you have an idea of what you want your data to be composed off but why qualitative and quantitative? what literature are you looking at to inform your field of inquiry? Is it about making work for children?
ReplyDeleteYou sound very busy, keep up the good work
Adesola
Thank you for your advice. I am at present researching the ethics of working with children and will be covering it in my post on 6c.
ReplyDeleteI have had difficulty in getting many students to be interested in my inquiry topic. My SIG is composed of 4 professional colleagues plus Stephanie.