6b - merits and limits

I have now conducted two pilot interviews and one pilot survey. I used two different methods to conduct the interviews. One was conducted using a set of structured questions which I emailed to the interveiwee and have reflected upon in my blog '6a pilot interview'.
     I decided to do a second pilot interview due to the limiting nature of my first interview. Although I gathered some very interesting information, I felt the method I used (email) was too limiting and I needed to be able to ask questions that lead on from certain answers. With this in mind, I prepared a semi structured set of questions and the conducted them via a telephone interview. This turned out to have its own merits and limits.

Limits

• No body language or facial expression, which can lead to mis-interpretation 
• It was very difficult to write everthing down as she spoke and I had to use short hand, which I did sometimes find diffiucult to re-read
• I would have liked to have been able to prompt further questions from her, but as I had no voice recording mechanism and hadn't pre-set particular questions, I didn't want to run the risk of persuading her in any direction. 

Merits

• I could hear the words she stressed and emphisized
• I was able to ask her to repeat herself if i was unsure of what she meant
• Speaking on the phone, I felt she said more than she would have done if she were writing answers to me. She could easily elaborate.
• So long as I wrote further questions down before asking her, I was able to ask her to go in to more detail in certain areas.

2nd pilot interview

The other research tool I used was a survey which I created on Survey Monkey. I think the concept is really fantastic - that you can create a survey so easily and it can instantly reach so many people. The limitations I came across however, were that simply not enough people completed the survey to make it a fair representation of what the majority think or do. 9 people answered my survey for me. I actually found that the questions that I had left a comment box available were much more beneficial than the ones where they ticked a box. I think that on a wider scale, this could have shown me some clearer information, but as it was, the statistcis didn't really show any obvious answers. If I use this tool again, it needs to be done on a much wider scale and I think I will use more comment boxes. I acutally received comments on my blog and facebook page (for those I sent the survey to who are not on the BAPP course), saying they would have like to have been able to explain more in their answers.

I'm really annoyed with myself that I haven't been able to conduct the focus group or the observation. It has been impossible as I am currently on school Easter holidays - this is entirely my own fault as I should have done them before the end of term. I think that the focus group could have been very beneficial to me and would have provided a more counter balanced discussion. I will be going ahead and conducting one when school starts again, just so I have the experience.