I completed my questionnaires about three weeks ago and sent the links off to the relevant teachers asking them to distribute them to their students. I was always a little apprehensive about this method of data collection as I know it is difficult enough to get the students to complete tasks which are mandatory for their course let alone things which are optional. I blogged about a week ago voicing these concerns and it was suggested that I should consider giving the students some sort of incentive for completing it, a prize for one of the students which seems in theory to be a good idea but upon discussions with other members of staff I learnt that this might not be so feasible. As a member of staff I am not allowed to give students anything, any prises must be awarded to them through the correct school channels i.e. an assembly or prize giving and as the schools involvement in the inquiry is limited to the art department this would prove to be quite difficult. Now that we are a few weeks into the collection time the general response has been good from all participant except the student I work with. I have one response and that one was useless as the student filled in the first question, what is your name and the skipped the rest. I have done everything I can think of to try and get them to complete it but still they refuse. I have asked them nicely; I have shouted at them, I have gotten the head f the department to shout at them I have pestered them about it every time I have seen them about I have even set time aside in the lessons for them to in turn go onto a computer to complete it, an idea which I had to abandon because they were all surfing the web and playing games. So now I admit defeat! This data collection method will not work with these students so I have to come up with another strategy. It has been agreed with the head of the department that next week one of their lessons will be used to conduct a focus group where I will ask the students the questionnaire questions and record their responses. I have asked the department head to sit in on the focus group to try and stop it from erupting into a shouting match like it did when I conducted my pilot focus group. I am slightly concerned about them talking over each other and then struggling to hear what any of them were saying when playing back the recording. To try and avoid this I am going to try to keep a very calm atmosphere, direct questions to individuals and then calling on people in tern to comment on their response rather than asking the questions to the group. I also plan to be very strict with them and remove from the group any person who attempts to intentionally disrupt it. The only possible problem with this tactic is I might end up with more students out of the focus group than in but I believe that this will be the most effective way of getting the information from the students.
To an extent I am lucky that I am having these issues with the students in my school and not one of my comparative schools. Had it have been on of the other schools I would have possibly had to make an extra trip to that school which would be almost impossible as I work full time in a school and to do this I would have to miss an extra day of work or I would have to consider not using this school in my inquiry. At least as it is I can come up with alternative approaches without majorly affecting my schedule.
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