Effective Tools

Now looking in to tools that I could use during my Inquiry process there are few different tools I would like to consider to see what is effective. 

Now initially I thought of interviews, which has been seen as an effective way to gain information from the participants involved directly and can ask questions that allow them to answer freely.  However looking in to this type of tool for research I feel there is a downside.  For me this will produce answers that could vary so much from each interview to the next, and that could be so wide in it's findings that it would also be harder for me to come to a suitable conclusion to my overall findings. 

I also feel with the interview technique it would not be the most suitable tool to use when my questions will be proposed to a class of children that range between 7-11 years old.  Therefore I feel that some may not be as comfortable giving their own thoughts on answers on the questions that I propose to them that the results would not be even and fair. 

As I would still like to ask the Children of the class involved in my inquiry questions to help me come to a good range of findings I have considered the tools of questionnaires/surveys.  With practice on surveys among my colleagues, with them answering questions for me so I could gain an idea of the tool and how it works, but also with me filling in others surveys I can now report on the use of this tool from both views.

With questionnaires/surveys a range of answers can already be provided and each child would have to tick the box they most relate to for each answer, this would provide a range of results that can be measured and displayed as my findings for my research for my inquiry.  I will still benefit from keeping 1 or 2 questions open to allow those to fill in their own thoughts with following a set answering plan constantly. 

Finally one other tool I have considered using for my inquiry would be observations.  As my inquiry is of dance within education it would be beneficial to the inquiry to observe classes in action and set myself a plan on how to take findings from these observations.  I can do these observations over a period of time to make them more valid for my results.  I am aware this will be an effective tool to use as I have already had experience of this tool whilst completing my teaching exams in dance where I had to observe classes and report on them.