Task 6B: Tools For Inquiry

Survey and Questionnaires
I have decided to use Survey and Questionnaires as I could gather a greater range of data. I could therefore ask a variety of different people about who they are and what they think. I did however find it difficult in asking questions as I feel I could have got a lot more information from people by how I was asking them.  I felt that my design of questions did not provide the information I need and this affected my analysis. I have also set my survey so that if any participant finds a question uncomfortable they are not obliged to answer. 

Focus Group
“focus groups are more likely to include members who either have similar characteristics or experience... or are known to have a professional concern about and knowledge of the issues involved.” (2005, p. 162).
Focus Groups are less time consuming for me as I can gather information in one go and the members may also be less pressured as there is more than one of them.  This maybe hard to manage as the conversation can go off topic so I will need to make sure that I channel topic related questions so that I do not waste any time. I must also be aware that strong personalities may influence the group and make it harder to some participants to speak.

Insider- Researcher 
The benefits of insider - researcher is that I know the context and I am familiar with the workplace, however I maybe biased about some issues I already have.  I also need to clarify that I am the researcher and that the information I am trying to find out from my participants is for my degree and nothing else.  I have recorded relevant information in my journal which I will now use for this research process. 

Interview
I have used interviews to find out information about a particular type of individual. My questions would therefore be very specific depending on what I want to find out.  A good thing about interviews is that they can be conducted in a variety of ways e.g. phone, Skype, face to face, with an individual or group of people, using a structured list of questions or a more informal method of interaction. I could then give this option to the participant and see which way they would prefer to be interviewed.  Although interviews can be time consuming it may help me to uncover unexpected data.

Observation
I didn't use Observation as it wouldn't be possible to gather a lot of information in a short period of time.  I did consider observing an audition but I felt that this was not very accurate and would be very difficult to analyse.  With observing there are many ethical issues to consider as I would need to get permission from all involved and must make all the participants aware that it is confidential.