6a - Pilot interview

I decided to start off my research by conducting a pilot interview. My line of inquiry is based on the importance of Arts in education. I decided I needed to interview someone who currently works in education so that they have a good understanding and knowledge of what the current educational system is like in England. I thought it was also important to interview someone who has a broad knowledge, rather than just one subject, so that they have witnessed a range of lessons, teaching methods, subjects and how the pupils learn. This meant it would not be appropriate to interview a teacher, as they only encounter one or maybe two subjects. I myself am a teaching assistant, and support pupils in all subject areas. Therefore, I thought it appropriate to ask another teaching assistant to be interviewed. I chose this particular colleague due to the fact that not only does she have this desired, broard knowledge, she also has a BA honours in Drama and Media Arts. I thought this was benefical as she has the background knowledge to support the questions I needed to ask.

I will be conducting a different method of research to look in to other aspects of my inquiry, but with this interview, I wanted to use my colleague's knowledge to identify the current state of the Drama department in my place of work. This will be necessary because it will help me to point out the way in which creative subjects are currently perceived within secondary education.

I sent my colleague the following covering information sheet and semi-structured set of questions. I did this via emial because we are currently on school holidays and she is away. I actually found it beneficial to conduct the interview via email because it meant that I had all her thoughts and answers in writing which made it easy to go over and there was no room for mis-interpretation or forgetting what she had said. Of course the draw back was that I couldn't ask her to elaborate on any of her comments.

Covering Information Letter

Interview Questions

Interview Answers

This is the interview in full, but I will be carefully extracting areas that are particulary relevent for my inquiry. Please let me know what you think of my covering letter and questions. I have tried to be as objective as possible and not impose any of my personal thoughts in to the questions. Have I done so?

Sorry it's all quite long!
Thank you!