Schedule

Hey everyone! Hope you are all getting on ok. 

I had a really great talk with Adesola on Friday morning. It has really helped me straighten out a few thoughts in my head. I feel confident with the themes I have discovered and feel excited to delve deeper in to them! It has also allowed me to create a plan for the next few weeks. Adesola reminded me that I need to stick to a tight scedule now to allow myself valuable time to write up the work. 

So after our chat, I found myself sitting there for a good while making tonnes of notes!! This allowed me to look back at the scribbled notes I had written during our conversation and think a little more about what was said. I could then expand on certain areas and organise it all, which therefore made it a lot clearer in my head. 

Scedule- Friday Oct 31st- Nov 9th

Literature- Although I have a fair amount of literature relevant to my themes, I have discovered deeper lines and so feel I need to find some more literature that applies. (Already finding some interesting pieces)

Organise- I will then print out all of my information and start sectioning it off in to my themes. So for example, give each theme a colour, look at the literature and highlight the relevant parts in this colour. I will then do the same with the data I have collected from people. 

THEME- WHAT IM EXPLORING IN THEME- WHAT LITERATURE APPLIES TO IT- WHAT DATA APPLIES TO IT 

Therefore all the ingredients are getting mixed together! :) 

THEN....

Draft my Analysis the week starting November 10th!!

Once I have all my themes organised and sectioned out in to their colours, I can start drafting my analysis. 

This is the heart of everyhing, it's what it's all about. I will start in the middle and then write outwards from there. Once I have that as my core, I will then be able to write the rest of my piece e.g I will know what I'm summarising in my introduction. I also feel that the analysis will take the most time to write so it's always good to start with the hard bit first!

I will keep you all updated with how it's going! :) 

Where I'm at!

So as I said in my earlier posts I am looking to build a little more on the research I gathered last year. Am I on my way with this with just a few more areas I need to cover. I have also found a few more pieces of literature that I found to be very interesting. 

My plan is to now get all of my information out in front of me and try to make sense of it all. This is quite daunting as there is so much information and its hard to know where to start!

My interviews, focus group, observational notes, surveys my action research as well as all of my literature. 

The divisions- 

My research is a variety of different ages, roles within this industry, nationality, different professions. With them all being at different points in their careers. 

Can I see patterns emerging? Contrasts? Are these divisions showing drastic differences in the way different people conduct themselves? Or are the results quite similar? 

As I explained in a earlier blog of mine ' Literature- Trying out a new method' I am using reader 7 as a guide with my literature. Applying this method to my new literature findings will help organise all of the information and make it more readable for me. I hope this will make it easier for me to compare and contrast the different pieces.

Action research-

Reflecting back on the whole process so far has taught me how important it is to be aware that I have my own strong opinions and to always remember that. As long as I am questioning things from different points of view and interpreting things in different ways I am broadening my knowledge and insight and leaving myself open for more information, combining these with my own strong opinions.

This then brings me on to my action research. It would seem silly to wait till the end of the inquiry process to try out new methods I have discovered when I could activately try them out myself during this process and use it as part of my research. I could sort of use it as a pilot type thing with my friends and see what they thought of it. How did It come across? What are their opinions on it? Is that method something I should apply when working with industry professionals in the future? 

So in short, i still need to...

speak to a couple more people

experiment with my action research 

Evaluate the new lit I have found so it's clear and organised (using my new method)

Add my last bits of info to what I already have/ notes I've already made from interviews obs etc.

start to evaluate and organise into sections- similarities, contrasts. What am I seeing? 

Reviewing module 2- changes/ changes from last year!

This blog post is from last year before I interrupted the course. Luckily due to the nature of my inquiry I feel I don't have to make too many changes. However, because my situation has changed from this time last year, I now find myself constantly surrounded by my research candidates. Some areas are now more accessible which is great because if anything I can acquire more information using different tools and methods. I also hope that because it is a year on and our world and technologies are forever developing and changing there is even more for me to get my teeth in to!

See the bold italic areas to see the changes from this post last year

Reviewing module 2 and feedback given has really helped me get started and discover changes I may want to make to my original plan. 

- I have decided to get rid of 'focus group' as an inquiry tool. As Paula said in the session less is more and if I'm honest with myself, I find it virtually impossible to get a group of my professional friends together. As these where the people I was going to being focusing on (employed and unemployed performers) I realise that a one to one interview is more applicable and less time consuming (we don't have long and trying to find a time when everyone is free together could prove quite challenging!). 

This is the first big change being made. I said last year that I found it virtually impossible to get together a group of my professional friends. This is because at that time I was at home in Liverpool with family and so not surrounded by my professional friends who are more or less based in London. However this year I am lucky enough to be in a professional job. I am currently performing in Starlight Express in Bochum, Germany. This means that I work, live, eat and breathe with my fellow cast mates which makes them very accessible! We have all been in this together since February and so I have created some amazing friends which I will have forever. It is such a big company with some cast members having worked here for over 10 years! This is amazing for me as it allows me to research a whole spectrum of people e.g different ages, experience, nationality, roles and status within the building (ensemble, principals, dance captain, choreographer, skate coach etc).

I feel a focus group would sit well with my close friends within the company as I know I would find it easy to get us all together in one space.

- I did originally plan to research professional performers within the industry but I now feel it wiser to expand further by also interviewing agents, directors and also other industry professionals in other professions. Getting more opinions and thoughts from different types of people status's and industries will allow me to discover themes (or not) and relate and contrast to my own experiences and literature. 

- An overall aim for this process is to self reflect on my own history and experiences more. Acknowledging my own unconscious actions in the past (attending Laines taster course. Why? to get seen before my audition? to catch someones eye and be a face rather than just a name? Was i aware of this at the time? Moving to London to attend Laine Theatre Arts. Did I realise then the importance of having Laines as a credit? Did I know the effect it would have when going out in to the real world? Also being accessible by being in London.

Reviewing Module 2

"Aim is to develop beyond the module itself as I feel this is something I have learnt from my previous assignments"

Adesola agrees that this is a good observation and how important the actual process is itself. When asked what and inquiry was in the campus session, are explanation focused more upon the journey and learning through the process itself, rather than the objective being about finding a right or a wrong answer. We are all different and may find so many different opinions and questions surrounding our topic. However, I believe we should take the parts we feel will work for us and that are relevant to are own practice and compare with the theories we don't fully relate to in order to develop understanding and greater knowledge. This we can then use to our advantage during our professional practice. 

Reviewing module 2 I have realised how important it is to be aware that you have strong opinions about your topic and to carry this thought with you from the beginning to the end. Keep questioning the ideas and the way you are reading things. This point that Adesola mentioned to me has really stuck out. I have my own opinion already in mind but I shouldn't let this hinder how I read or interpret any of the information. Make yourself ask questions that you wouldn't necessarily ask to try and get a different point of view . This then relates back to what I said earlier about using all of what you accumulate, even if you don't necessarily believe or understand it. The more we can put ourselves out there in other people's shoes and question it even more so, the more we can absorb an therefore develop our learning and knowledge.

Action Research? Yes sounds good to me!

My plan originally was all about me doing the inquiry and asking the questions, observing the situations and then somehow making conclusions about what I feel I have learnt and changes I might make to how I network. However, after the help of Adesola, I have realised how I can experiment myself with different approaches of networking as part of the research project and see how I feel. It would work well experimenting with close peers of mine and getting their feedback of how I came across. This is a perfect example of me putting myself in other people's shoes and being open to change. During the campus session Mimi Whitney explained how she experimented with all the journal writing methods in order to find which one worked best for her. This is exactly how I now want to work with the networking methods I come across. This new action research incorporated with the ideas I gather from my own research on others I hope will give me a significant amount of knowledge surrounding this subject. I also love the fact that I can explain first hand what the experience is like and as I keep saying, getting it from different points of view! 

Developments-

I conducted several interviews, observations and surveys last year which I felt at the time had given me enough information to get started. However, a year has gone by and I am interested to see if there are any changes in peoples responses and actions. I am lucky enough to have the past information as a base for me but I am building on top of that by asking more questions to different people and seeing if much has changed In a year!

Third and final module!

So after a year out due to work commitments, I am now ready to complete the third and final module! I am starting by re reading my module 2 plan and feedback, as well as blogs and of course the reader and handbook. 

Members of my SIG group have now finished the course so I was a bit worried about trying to find a new one. Luckily, I discovered a friend of mine Melanie Cannon was at the same point in this course and she was kind enough to add me to your circles. I feel less out there on my own now! 

Anyway this was just a little update. I blogged at the beginning of this module last year before I interrupted so have a read.

 It has been a full year so I wondered if I would have to change a lot to my altered plan. However, due to the nature of my inquiry, I don't feel i need to change much at all. If anything I just feel I have acquired more knowledge over this year to add to my research!