Firstly I'd like to mention how glad I am about the mistakes I made with my trial interview and literature research. I always learn best from my mistakes and I like to correct myself and use reflection-on-action a lot now whether writing it down or keeping it well an truly glued in my mind.
Literature
Interview
Questionnaire
Seeing as my questions are in some need of interaction and little demonstration the interview was absolutely perfect. As well as explaining particular exercises verbally for example I was able to have a little visual explanation too which was good to note down in brackets. I used 'open questions' for the whole of my structured interview which gives more of a chance for me to 'follow up on ideas'(Bell, 2005, p157)
I did use a leading question slightly when referring to music, but I added a counter question to see whether the interviewee actually believes music is needed at all. I found that without leading questions, I got a lot more open and accurate responses. The teacher I approached was a friend of a friend, but who I have never met. I phoned her to start my trial investigation and the only downside to this was that she sounded a bit awkward talking to a stranger about doing an interview. I asked if she wouldn't mind me sending her the details of my course and my inquiry via email of which she accepted. The few things that I have learned from this are that talking about an interview over the phone was not a good move, that I should've simply asked if I could send her the information about my course. I should've explained about my inquiry over the phone as well as via email, and about my aspirations. I should've made a big point over the phone that it was for my learning and not to assess, of which I did mention in my information email. All of these things I have made a note of and will not disregard during my professional research. The interview itself we did at her home which was her choice, after all it was she who was doing me a favour. I gave her a draft of my conducted consent form and asked if she would've changed any of it, but she found it all very sincere and fair, then signed it the way it was. The interview was very easy and quite relaxing. The answers she gave were quite broad but the information was thorough and I could easily see slight connections from my literature research. I don't believe that a different location would've made any difference to the accuracy in her answers, but might possibly have changed the depth. I will make a clear point in future, (although I was lucky this time,) that the location will be wherever the participant feels most comfortable to answer questions. Maybe refrain from using the word 'interview' full stop.
The Literature that I'd looked at in one of the previous tasks gave some interesting ideas but they came across too matter-of-fact. Seeing as I believe that my most beneficial aim is about finding individual ideas to try out myself now and in my future career, these literature pieces only give a general understanding, and overall popular methods. I want to find out a range of unique ideas and also a deeper understanding about my aspect, so I think I will be more successful researching in to academic articles and books. So although what I did gave me more qualitative answers, I think I'd prefer to focus the qualitative on the interviews and keep to getting more professional views for my literature research in future.
I kept my questionnaire short and sweet, and the questions were basic and open. I got exactly the kind of responses that I had hoped for of which I could easily analyse, for example; eight participants out of the seventeen responses stated that it was somebody other than themselves who decided for them to start dance lessons, one being a doctor. I used my pilot questionnaire as a confirmation that approaching parents with a questionnaire about 'why their children started dancing' would be beneficial to me and foremost the parents that may approach me in the future.
I believe that the interview that I conducted could have helped the teacher I worked with in ways that improved their reflection-on-action. Seeing as the questions were all positive and didn't require any response from me, I think the trial interviewee went away feeling proud of her knowledge and probably improve her understanding of her work too. Therefore giving her a nudge in confidence could've helped her own students in the process. Same goes for the questionnaire. Although it was done through a technical resource; Survey Monkey, I think because of the questions asking for positive responses it would have helped the participants realize how much they love their dancing and given them a boost in confidence.
The survey/questionnaire was shared with my SIG and it may have helped some of them by giving them the understanding that the questionnaire can be done through technology or analogue, and that it doesn't need to have tones of questions.
The literature research, although not too valuable to me could include aspects that are valuable to my SIG and other teachers; inexperienced or experienced.
All of my mistakes are valuable to me and I'm sure to my SIG and other people on the course. My experience could be helpful to any future BAPP students as well.
'Keeeeeeeeep blogging'
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