Data Collection Methods - What am I using and what am I planning to use?

Questionnaires

I have already sent out my survey to teachers within my practice in order to establish their views on Creativity and what it means to them. When undertaking the formation process of my survey, I decided to use both open and closed questions to do this. From my research, it appeared that a balance of these types of questions was a much more productive way of approaching the survey, mainly due to the fact that if every answer is closed, the answers may not mean as much as a teacher's opinion and if all the questions are open there may be a point where teachers feel slightly intimidates by blank boxes and my research will then not be very specific.

There was also a lot of thought that I had to put into creating the questions, because the whole way through I was thinking 'am I putting my bias into the questions?' 'Does this sound neutral?' Just like we mentioned in the Skype chat, you have to be creative and open even in a data collection process!

Observations

At this moment, I am planning to research and then collate an observation sheet so I can note down specifically what I see within lessons that I observe. I have realised that one of my main points of interest is the creative methods that teachers use within their lessons and I want to find this out through surveys, noting down on my observation sheet each time I observe a creative element and also use teacher's lesson plans to analyse so I can highlight the times in which they have scheduled in a creative task. 

Interviews and Focus Groups 

I also want to interview particular teachers that have a Creative Arts background or specialism (eg. Drama Club Assistant, Art Teacher etc) compared to teachers that may not have have a Creative or Theatre Arts specialism (Eg. Geography Teacher) and see what their views are on creativity within the classroom and their creative teaching methods. I am still deciding whether to do this all through individual interviews or whether to look at using a focus group to gather viewpoints so that I gather a variety of viewpoints through discussion rather than just simply one viewpoint from one person at a time. 

Reflective Journal and Blogging

I always write in my reflective journal whenever I can to write down things that I haven't before realised and to reflect on what skills I am developing. This is a great way to track progress. I will continue to write in this throughout the process.