Task 6B - Part 1, Pilot Survey!

Having already played around with a survey I had more of an idea when it came to conducting this pilot. However once you hand it over to the participant theres not a lot more you can do until the analytical stage the importance of the survey lies within its construction.

It is vital that although you as the researcher are creating the questions you remain un bias towards the inquiry in order to gain truthfully and reliable data.

I found it really interesting getting feedback from my questions from the girls, both Mel, Chelsie and my friend Lauren who took part in the survey all brought to light one question which was not quite right. Both in the construction and the multiple choice answers provided. I have therefore re constructed it and presented it to them all again and received the thumbs up! Sometimes it's things like that no matter how many times you read it you can't see the issue.

They also brought to light some gaps in my survey and helped me workshop suitable questions that could fill them. For example Mel is currently doing a profit share job which she feels is enhancing her professional development. One of my questions asked if you do workshops and courses to improve your professional skills, she brought to my attention the likes of doing profit share and unpaid jobs also are developing your skills therefore I am going to think of a question involving these points as I feel it's relative to my Inquiry. 

We established that its important to make the survey user friendly so it doesn't take up too much time but is the right length to provide you with the data you need.

I also found a very interesting journal which looked at the difference between an online survey and a paper survey and looked into the pro's and con's. Before I found this article I hadn't even thought whether a paper or online survey would make a difference however I now feel very differently about this. Denscombe looks into the quality of data received by both kinds of surveys. He touched upon the fact that web surveys come at a price as the data collected can sometimes be not as reliable as many people leave things out however it is less time consuming. I have personally looked into the likes of survey monkey which does in fact have a tool which you can put in place where the participant is told they require an answer to the question before they move on. Therefore would result in more accurate data if I was to use their format. How ever unless you upgrade to their plus version you can only have a 10 question survey which Im not sure is enough for me. 

With paper surveys the trouble is they are more time consuming depending on how you collect the data from them, for example if they have to post it back to you. I feel with a paper survey people may feel more obliged to do it if they know the researcher especially if you personally approach them. 

Denscombes article is called 'Item non response rates: a comparison of online and paper questionnaires;"if you wish to look into it further. 

With my Inquiry it is aimed at a very specific group of people, therefore I wouldn't be able to do a mass postal or high street survey anyway, also I am not convinced that I will gain the best response from web surveys. The reason being I posted a basic one in our middlesex uni SIG page on facebook and have only had 4 responses which has been highly disappointing. 

I feel to get the best out of my survey I am going to target a group of 30 people all of whom are musical theatre professionals. Due to the nature of my inquiry I will them split that group of 30 into 2 and target 15 whom are less successful and 15 whom are more successful in order to get a wide spread of data. I will also be using paper surveys, unless there are any unforeseen circumstances and in those cases I will email them the survey directly and get them to send it back to me fully completed. This is all still in the planning process so it may be subject to change but these are my thoughts for now!