A Critical Reflection on Professional Practitioner Inquiry. First Draft.

In this Module, I have explored the concept of a professional enquiry as a way of further enhancing my professional practice.

In part one of the module I began with exploring lines of professional inquiry. I started this process by creating a diagram of “where I was” professionally and where I wanted to be, hoping that a set of questions would emerge that would aid me in getting there. They did, and my first set of questions covered a vast range of topics. (Appendix A) At this stage my line of enquiry had no real direction other than I wanted it to be beneficial to my career.

I then spent some time researching and read a piece of literature (P.Brinson (1991), Dance as Education: Towards a National Dance Culture, Routledge Falmer) which inspired my line of enquiry to take new focus and direction towards dance within secondary education. (Appendix B)

I created an SIG on LinkedIn which sparked a discussion focusing on the different qualification routes you can take within dance education and training. (Appendix C) In exploring my lines of enquiry, and setting up an SIG, I had already learnt a lot about the process of becoming qualified to teach dance in the public sector. This highlighted to me the importance of the process of exploring potential lines of enquiry and how much I could learn from it.

As well as creating my own SIG, I joined a number of others created by fellow BAPP students that were relevant to my topic area. In one particular SIG I was involved in a discussion about the importance of children accessing creative subjects as well as academic (Appendix D). I was surprised by my level of passion on the subject; it was clear was a topic area of great interest to me and it fitted in well along side the other topic areas I had been considering.

I explored my existing professional network. I had a meeting with one of my employers and had an open discussion about what I had explored so far, and conversation turned to the comparative benefits of public and private dance education. The conversation developed, and moved on to discussing the general benefits of dance education and training. This helped to create a more focused (yet still quite broad) line of enquiry. I then used the advice given via comments on my blog and a discussion with my Advisor to further tune my enquiry (Appendix E).

In part two I explored ethics within my professional practice, beginning with reviewing my own instinctive ethical rules (Appendix F). I then compared these with actual codes of conduct found within my profession (Appendix G). This helped me to appreciate the importance of ethical awareness when conducting my enquiry.

In part three I explored the tools I would use when conducting my inquiry. I piloted a survey and reviewed the usefulness of this tool via blog comments (Appendix H). Helping another student construct her survey also helped me realise the importance of clarity (Appendix I). I also piloted an interview, discussing the positives and negatives (Appendix J).

Literature was another tool I explored, discovering many pieces of literature relevant to my enquiry. I chose two and conducted literature reviews (Appendix K & Appendix L). Discovering the abundance of literature was encouraging, as referring to these while conducting my enquiry will add depth to my findings.

In conclusion, this module has enabled me to develop my initial lines of inquiry by focusing them and developing them using literature, SIG discussions and discussions with other members of my professional network. I have explored my own ethical guidelines and as well the ones generally used in my professional field, and this has opened my eyes to the ethical considerations I will need to take when conducting my inquiry. I have experimented with different tools of inquiry which has helped me shape my enquiry plan, and led me to consider the ways in which I will analyse the data I gather. I feel that my professional enquiry is gaining real shape and focus now, and that it promises to be an extremely useful and insightful process, aiding in the development of my professional practice.