On Friday 1st May I conducted an informal Interview with someone who I am close to that works within a school and works with a variety of children/family's and has an insight into dance teaching as she has supported me and works close with me in my theatre school.
This gave me an insight as to what worked well and how I could help myself when I carry out my Interviews with professionals within their own practice. It also allowed me to see if the structure of my interview worked and gave me an idea of how I could gain further information from the way that my questions are asked/worded.
The Outcomes from the Pilot Interview
1). When beginning my Interview by reading out the paragraph of information I had put on the first page of my Interview sheet (See Appendix A) I knew that from her reaction that she knew what I wanted to accomplish and she said that;
'It gave me more of an understanding as to what my answers where going to be for each question rather than wasting my time by moving completely away from the answers you required. I also liked that you let me know that it didn't matter if I wanted to add to a question if you thought it related to the interview to give you further information.'
I will keep the beginning bit of the interview as I am sure it gives the professional another reminder, after their letter they have received off myself, what it is I am doing and why.
2). The semi-structured approach of my interview worked well as it allowed the opportunity for my questions to flow but if other issues and ideas arose we were able to talk about those as well. I personally think that telling my friend at the beginning of the interview made her more at ease to divert to other ideas that cropped up for some questions.
3). I originally had 10 questions with smaller questions attached just in case if the professionals did not expand on an idea I wanted to know more about, however automatically she expanded and linked questions I was going to talk about later on in the interview, this threw me for a few minutes leaving me in a bit of a pickle. To stop this from happening I will look into swapping some questions around to make it flow better as I forgot how certain questions could be linked but I will keep other smaller questions in place just in case they do not expand on the question, but they are not essential to use.
4). When carrying out my interview and knowing that the information given needs to be written down exactly as they have said it, I knew that from the beginning of the interview I was going to struggle with writing the explanations, answers and opinions as quickly as possible whilst keeping up with the flow of the interview. To make sure this doesn't happen when I carry out my interviews I will take a Dictaphone and use this so I can listen carefully whilst taking all information in knowing that their words will be captured on the Dictaphone for me to refer back to away from the interview, without missing any vital information they had shared with me. I will now have to ask their permission to use a dictaphone for my own personal use before the interview and even better to email them all to make sure that they are fully aware this will happen.
5). I was not sure how long the Interview was going to last and with the option to adding information to questions. Overall the interview with my close friend lasted 35minutes and she added a lot of information to questions as well as me loosing the flow of the interview by writing information downs. I will allow 40 mins for each interview but if it goes over, if the participant is happy, then it will not matter to go on for a further 10 mins but if it happens to go under the time limit that does not matter either.
By doing a pilot interview it has allowed me to see what has worked and what hasn't and has given me an insight as to how it will work and what to expect. I look forward to gathering further information from all of the professionals that have got back to me and have agreed to the interview and look forward to broadening my knowledge from their experiences.
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