I am currently conducting pilot interviews and surveys for the purpose of gathering information on your experience and opinion for my topic based question ‘Does the fusion of multiple dance styles have a negative effect on the conservation of historical, cultural or original dance’?
The information that I collect will form part of a professional inquiry I am undertaking, in association with Middlesex University Institute for Work Based Learning and is for my sole use. All participants shall remain anonymous until such times as permission is granted to me for results to be published.
All data will be strictly confidential. A code will be created to record data. I am the only person with access your data and will be the primary researcher. You can instruct me at any time during this investigation if you wish stop the inter view or survey and be excluded.
Every person that took part in my various pilot interviews made were aware that these were trial interviews in preparation for the next module. They were made aware that these surveys were being researched for appropriate tools to conduct my Professional Inquiry.
Every person that took part in my various pilot interviews made were aware that these were trial interviews in preparation for the next module. They were made aware that these surveys were being researched for appropriate tools to conduct my Professional Inquiry.
Pilot interview
This interview was conducted with an internationally known Salsa teacher and performer. I’ve known this teacher for many years and have been employed by the company. On this occasion my cover letter was shown and understood.
This interview was conducted after a Salsa lesson as this was convenient for us both.
It was a semi-structured interview, the questions in the interview differed from my pilot survey questions.
As a freelance dance teacher I was aware of the ‘insider-research’s conflicts of interest’ and made a conscious effort not to engage or be pulled into the conversation. There was mutual respect between us as the participant was aware I was conducting this pilot interview under a Professional Ethics code.
I wasn’t expecting definitive answers with my open ended question. I was anticipating this to be an interview of quality.
I am aware that my professional inquiry will require qualitative data for historical, cultural and original dance styles. This will give me the essence, core, heart and importance to the nature of my inquiry.
The interview lasted about forty minutes. This wasn’t really long enough as I felt pressured that students were waiting close by to speak to the teacher after the class as often is the case.
My time during the interview was spent taking notes. This concluded to be awkward when I asked to repeat some points. I intend to conduct an interview via video recording method which will be beneficial to both my participant and myself. This will eliminate illegible notes and the participant will have my undivided attention making the interview more relaxed.
The alternative was to have used a dictaphone.
In conclusion, I found this method of interview to be much more appropriate for my professional inquiry even though we were in an open area with other participants around. In future, I will find an appropriate quite area to conduct the interview in private. I was trying to be as un-bias as possible and found I could hold my tongue and not express my personal opinion. This way, I learned much more and this rich information could be recorded and knowledge passed on.
With my ‘future career’ in mind, my objective is to conduct these surveys in order to highlighting gap areas in education that I could research further and specialise in.
References
Middlesex University (2011) Reader 6: Tools of Professional Inquiry
Researching Dance : Fraleigh and Hanstien
A pilot observation in dance classes is an inappropriate method of collecting data for my line of inquiry as I require verbal responses. However I did come across a US dance company in Network Dance forum LinkedIn who are addressing my inquiry question within their dance workshops. That would be an ideal class for me to observe.
A pilot focus group has proved to be a little challenging to get together because of time constraints but is impossible if planned well in advance by informing the relevant participants of a mutual date and place of meeting. I found an occasion that I covertly steered a group of dancers after a rehearsal of Oriental Dance and started a discussion on the lines of ‘Why do women choose to dance belly dance’ This is linked to my inquiry question as it will be a dance style I will analyse and compare to other culturally diverse dance styles in the UK and the effect of fusion has on the original/cultural/historical dance. I was most surprised by the variety of responses I got from the group. I was able to jot down notes after the short 20 minute discussion while we were stretching out on the mats. I think this is something that I may consider putting together but need to plan a convenient date time and place for the group and think about recording devices.
Filmed interview with a student/friend
I choose a close friend that happily participated understanding my restrictions regarding codes of conduct and that I was the only person with access to this data. My friend understood that it was a trial attempt but we were relaxed during the interview which lasted approx. 20 minutes. A list of questions was supplied the day before and we discussed these before filming. I had the opportunity to probe further due to the nature of the answers. This gave me excellent responses. We were both satisfied with the video.
Pilot survey monkey
The pilot survey was created with survey monkey. Easy to set up, pass word protected with analysis results clearly shown. These were sent out to a small group of contacts within my social networking groups, my blog and emails were sent as well as given out by hand. A broad age range and ability levels were included, ranging from leisure dancers to professional teachers and performers.
All survey’s came back promptly apart from the surveys sent to four people in a Middle Eastern dance group I am currently rehearsing with. Nothing has been returned from this group to date.
I asked for suggestions of improving or amending questions in my survey. Suggestions from my BAPP blog mentioned to include the following in the survey; gender, age range and a couple of multiple choice questions. I didn't think it mattered about the participants gender but I think I will include the gender question to make it quicker and easier to analyse the data.
In conclusion, I’ve collected data in various forms on a variety of dance styles.
The pilot observation will not be applicable for my line of inquiry.
The filmed interview gave qualitative results and the survey gave both qualitative and quantitate results I required particularly from the survey monkey. Charts could be produced to show visual clear results.
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