6b Critical Reflection on four Tools of Professional Inquiry

Merits and limits of my four pilot inquiry tools

I have now carried out a pilot for each of the following four tools; interview, survey, focus group and observation. I found each of these to be useful in different ways to my inquiry. The interview was a great way to get a detailed view on my subject, the survey gave me a variety of results which I could analyze percentages, the focus group enabled me to have a range of views and discuss different topics and the observation was a good way to watch the company operate and people's behavior.

Interview

For my pilot interview I decided to ask our technical manager/producer of the show some questions. He has been working in the entertainment industry for years so was a great person to interview due to his vast technical and managerial experience. The most appropriate way to hold this was to set up a meeting in his office for a short semi-structured interview. I had a set of questions I planned to ask and recorded the answers by taking notes.

Advantages:
- Here I could have a one on one discussion with him which allowed for clarification
- It was easy to set up and conduct
-  I could adapt and clarify the question by repeating or rephrasing it
- Any problems that the participant experiences I can observe through watching body language and reading facial expressions something you can't do in a survey or telephone interview
- You get a more reliable response
- You can explain the purpose of the interview and how it will be used face-to-face
Disadvantages:
- It can be hard to not probe for answers and affect the responses
- It is one persons view on a subject
- Geographic limitations if it needs to be done nationally or internationally
- Can be costly in terms of travelling to location

Survey

For this I used Survey Monkey, which I found really easy to create and use. I learned about how I need to phrase some of my questions to ensure a common understanding. I think I can improve on my survey for next time in order to gain the most out of it by not having so many choices and having less open-ended questions. The trouble here was how few responses I had. If I use this in my inquiry I will think about sending out reminders or providing some token of appreciation. I want people to feel motivated to complete my survey and for them to feel important.

Advantages:
- Easy to use and share with many people via links to social networking sites
- Reaches a large amount of people in a short space of time
- Inclusion of a larger geographic area
- Free to use
Disadvantages:
- Requires a lot of time to set up the right questions
- You can get a low response rate or inaccurate responses
- Sometimes restricts the freedom to explain or expand the response
- No one to correct the misunderstanding of a question or response format
- Hard to know if they responded independently or with help from others
- Using the Internet might exclude people who are not familiar with this technology

Focus Group

For my pilot focus group I decided to get together a small group of colleagues from the theatre that were interested in taking part. This included 2 dancers, 1 singer, 2 technical guys and the technical director. It went well although some people spoke more than others. Occasionally we would drift off my subject and I had to make sure we got back on track.

Advantages:
- I was able to ask the questions and keep the conversation on track
- People were able to talk and discuss the topics with one another
- We were able to talk about subject related topics even if they were not in my list of questions
- I could observe people’s behavior to the questions i.e. facial expressions, body language
- I was able to ask people that would be great candidates for a focus group and relevant to my subject
Disadvantages:
- Certain people spoke more than others and it was hard to get some people’s opinions at times
- We couldn’t talk about management in the company we work for as I held it at the theatre so if they wanted to say anything negative they couldn’t and because one of the managers was present which could have influenced the outcome
- The results are not like quantitative study findings, just small groups opinions

Observation

For my pilot observation I decided to watch the recent audition we held for our upcoming Broadway shows. As I was needed to take the dance part of the audition I arrived early to observe the singing auditions. I was mainly focusing on our Director and the way in which he conducted the audition. It was a lengthy process with over 50 people showing up and each singing two contracting songs. An interesting thing I observed however was that as resumes were being handed to the Director as the candidates were going up onstage he would put it straight on the floor and not even look at it. He noted some numbers down on a piece of paper and that was how he shortlisted who he liked.

Advantages:
- I could directly observe the behavior of the Director holding the audition and the way he was choosing performers
- You can look at behavior of those being watched and tally how many times a certain behaviour happens
Disadvantages
- Time consuming. The singing audition was over 2 hours
- It can change the way people may behave if they know they are being observe
- People might act in a certain way to try and conform to what the researcher wants to see
- Different observers might draw different conclusions from watching the same thing
- Researchers perception of what is happening might be bias to the end result

 In conclusion, I feel that all the above tools each have a useful part to play in my inquiry. I will need to choose which methods will be suitable for the different subjects I am looking into. For example to find out more about setting up a business and managing a new company it might be beneficial to carry out some more one-to-one interviews with some of the directors of the company whereas finding out more about career transition in dancers carrying out another survey might be of use for a vast range of results.