Tools of Inquiry - At a glance

So after having a quick glance at Reader 6 - and I mean quick!!! I was interested to see how I reacted to each method and how instantly I could pick out the ones that I feel would be useful to help me along the way with my inquiry. However, I can see the benefit to all these tools of inquiry and I do think I  may find it quite hard to choose and I will want to try EVERYTHING! (does anyone else have this issue??) but I must be good and despite seeing the benefits to all the tools.

Below under the headings are my initial thoughts to each too and how they may help me in my Inquiry.

Observation

I always think observation is a fantastic learning tool anyway. Not just in the concept of what we are doing now, but it is sometimes good to take a step back and have a look at what and how others do things. Taking away both the positive that you can include in your own practice and the not so positive that you think doesn't work, however you may find that a different approach works because what you have seen does't.

For me observation will be really intriguing - As I only ever see students in a creative environment it the dance studio. It would be great to see how teachers approach teaching the age group I am interested in (Early years/KS1) academically and what techniques they use to keep the children engage and focused

Participant Observation 

Now the first this that came into my head when reading about this was YES this would be amazing experiencing it first hand. However to do both kinds of observation will be very time consuming, so you have to be realistic and I do think even though this tool would also be extremely helpful it is also very time consuming - So I would probably either pick this or just observation.

Interviews 

I think this will be a brilliant way of gathering different peoples thoughts and feelings. Despite being formal I think that this can sometimes be taken as a positive and asking a range of people the same/similar questions to see how they respond I think will be a great way of gathering data for analysis. So for example I could interview teachers with an academic background teachers with and arts back ground and maybe parents to get thoughts and ideas from across a wide range and variety of people.

Focus Groups 

This could be quite a nice idea as it enable discussion to happen in an organised setting. However as it says in the reader "be aware that strong personalities can "also influence, and in some cases actually take over a group and make it difficult for the less assertive members to speak" (Bell, 2005 p 163)

I think that this is something that you have to be really careful of when doing a focus group, but when run in the correct manner and making sure a gatekeeper is present that I think it could be a fantastic way of collecting to analyse.

Surveys and Questionnaires 

Again something that is could be extremely time consuming and ensuring that you get the right balance of questions and that they are worded correctly is key as you don't want to fall into the trap of influencing a persons answer.


So all in all a LOT to think about!!! has anyone else had a think about what tools they may use?? I would love to hear and also views and opinions on what you think will work and what won't.