I was able to organise a focus group with a number of associates who are fellow dance teachers. There were six of us in total, all female, but ranging in ages and years of teaching experience. It was a little tricky to try and find a day and time that everyone was available and so I ended up just going with what suited the majority but this meant that some people could not make it.
I used a semi structured approach, I had four areas I wanted to address and just see what answers came out. These were to find out about personal experiences of differentiation, teaching methods, whether there is need for change and to gather general views and opinions on the subject.
Everybody contributed something to the conversation, but two members in particular were quite dominant and out spoken with their views. Others tended to sit back and listen, not giving opinions unless directly asked.
The conversation did not bounce off each other as I had hoped it would, so I was continually trying to spark new thoughts. Teaching ideas were shared which was great but not always around the subject of differentiation. I sometimes found it hard to manage the group as they would go off task and I felt I didn’t have the authority to tell them that the subject matter was not actually relevant to the intended topic.
Although I was able to gather some qualitative data, it was not as in depth as that attained during my pilot interview. As an overall experience I preferred the one on one interview approach as a research tool and feel it would be more beneficial in providing me with the information I want to gather as part of my project.
I would prefer to spend more time with one person getting a really informed view, then getting more diluted information from a focus group. I feel a survey will provide me with enough of a range of opinions and data that I can compare and contrast and interviews will be the way to dig deeper.
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