As I have decided to only use Literature Review and Interviews for my research tools I felt I had a lot riding on my interviews!
Planning the questions:I decided to start with a few closed questions to put my participants at ease. These were the same in every interview.
My interview was semi- structed but I grouped the questions into 3 categories.
-personal experiences of creativity
-policies and creative partnerships
-current teaching practice
I also considered how I would introduce myself during my interview. I wanted people to be relaxed but well informed of my project.
I decided to conduct interviews with teachers in their own classrooms (before and after school). I hoped that this would help people to feel comfortable and allow them to speak freely!
The first interview:
Although I had conducted pilot interviews, I felt extremely nervous before my first official interview. I knew that I had one shot to get it right and wasn't totally confident that I'd chosen the right questions at this stage.
However, it went very well. My practice in layering questions paid off and the interview itself triggered off some more questions for me- that I added into the following interviews. I also adapted one or two of the questions.
My main point of reflection was the conclusion. I had not thought through or rehearsed how I would finish the interview. After this I decided to just add in a line before the final or penultimate question ...'we are coming to the end of the interview..' or word to that effect. This meant that when I did conclude the interview it didn't feel so abrupt.
Choosing participantsI went for a selection of male and female teachers. Those from different parts of the country and some not from the UK. I also wanted to have at least one from every year group reception- year 6.
I also chose teachers in specific leadership roles (most of these are classroom based aswell)
Creative Curriculum leader
KS2 phase leader
Artist in Residence/ Creative partnership co-ordinator
Music teacher
By coincidence one of the teachers I interviewed was also the communications leader.
Data
I now have hours of interviews to analyse!! And a whole lot of information.
In my next blog I will blog about the process I used to analyse the data.
If anyone has started this process or has any thoughts on effective ways to do so, please share!!
That is all very well structured and interesting to read your thoughts. I am just heading into the interview stage and have certainly taken on board what you have said in re the interview coming to an end.... I had not thought about that!
ReplyDeleteGood luck with your analysis ..... I look forward to reading how you got on
Hi Jo,
ReplyDeleteI noticed that you mentioned you chose to speak to male and female teachers, I guess this is to get a fair opinion. I did the same for my own inquiry when choosing dancers to interview and participate in my questionnaire I made sure I got answers from male and female participants so that my overall answers is not biased based on gender.
I know how you feel with so much data to have to analyse. I have just finished writing my first draft of my analysis of finding after having a lot of data to anyalse myself. I you read the post I have just put up it shows how I analysed some of the data that I got and the process I went through. Hope it helps!
Hi Joanna, I found it most useful to pick out the key points/comments/statistics from each process, write them down and see what had some up with the same result/theories and what opposed.
ReplyDeleteThanks guys, that's helpful Natalie. Ross I'll definitely check out your recent post.
ReplyDeleteGood luck Nicole!