Early experiments with processing data

I am close to having all my survey data collected and so I have started experimenting with how I will process and present the data.

Here is a very early attempt at displaying results to a question as a pie chart with percentages. Please ignore all formatting and layout issues, it looks beautiful on my Mac but as soon as I upload it to Google Docs it gets pulverised.

Early attempt at data processing

"Facilitating dance making from a teacher's perspective within a community integrated dance class", Research in Dance Education, Cheesman, Apr2011, Vol. 12 Issue 1, p29-40.

This particular article is written from the perspective of a dance teacher who speaks about her own community integrated dance class and why she thinks it is successful.
My study is exploring whether gaps exist between the teachers perceived benefits of dance and the students perceived benefits of dance, with the hope being that I will be able to improve the success of my own classes. Students attend classes with certain expectations, and the teachers do the same. In this observational study Cheesman states the following in her conclusion:

"I think reasons why this class works are inextricably linked with the people who chose to come to this class. Individuals attending this class come primarily to dance, and enjoy improvisation and the social interaction with other people. In this class we dance, play, and laugh a lot, and much of what happens comes from within as opposed to being imposed." (Cheesman, 2011.)

This is a perfect example of student and teacher expectations matching, and therefore the class is successful in both the eye of the student, and the teacher.

What if an experienced, traditionally trained dancer attended the dance class, possibly with a different set of expectations and perceptions of dance? Would that student leave the class having enjoyed it and benefitted from it? Would they go back again, or would they seek out a different class more in tune with their own perceptions of dance?

Cheesman goes on to say:

"Interesting to note is that this class does not usually attract participants who have had what we might call traditional dance training. I suspect this may be because the differing bodies with differing abilities are too confronting, challenging their ideas about what dance is and who can dance." (Cheesman, 2011)

Cheesman focuses on a sense of community, inclusion and freedom of voice; these are her perceived benefits of dance. Those particular benefits may not be the only ones she acknowledges professionally, but certainly in the case of this class, they are the ones that she focuses on. Seemingly (referring back to the first quote) the participants expectations of the class match what Cheesman is delivering, and therefore "the class works" (Cheesman, 2011). I would assume that if her students were attending with the expectation to improve their flexibility, technique and aesthetic quality they would regard the class as inappropriate and a waste of time. This is not to say that the class is poorly delivered or constructed, merely that it has been created to implement the teachers perceived benefits of dance, not the students.

This article serves as a great example of perceived benefits of dance being matched between student and teacher. It could be that the students and teachers that are part of my research are in the same situation, but it could also be that there are differing perceptions and expectations.

My study aims to explore how this relationship between perceptions effects the quality of a dance class, and by altering perceptions can dance class delivery be improved? If so, how can this be accomplished?

Literature Review: Uncertain times for dance in schools

'Keep arts at heart of curriculum' says Nicholas Serota

By Judith BurnsEducation reporter, BBC News

This article that Paula posted in a blog has got me feeling extremely concerned.

It feels like the arts have only just got a decent footing within schools, and it now seems they are being pushed out again! The article strongly suggests that the arts are going to be pushed out of the National Curriculum altogether, which I feel is going to have a massively detrimental effect on childrens education. As Nicholas Serota (director of the Tate art galleries) is quoted,

"We know that there is a great body of evidence now that has been gathered over the past 20 or 30 years which demonstrates that, where you have schools which give time to cultural learning, there is benefit both in that sphere and also to the other disciplines," 

"By making art a part of the national curriculum, we give the next generation of artists, designers, engineers, creators and cultural leaders the opportunity to develop the imagination and skills that are vital to our future." Nicolas Serota (2012)

I followed a link from this article to another which went into more detail about the new English Baccalaureate Certificate system which will be coming into force over the next few years:

GCSEs replaced by 'English Bac' in key subjects

It seems like such a huge step backwards!! In this new system, there will be no course work, no modular assessment, just one exam at the end. Talk about pressure!! This is not focusing on the process of learning! 

"we can have truly rigorous exams, competitive with the best in the world, and make opportunity more equal for every child" (Michael Gove, 2012)

This makes no sense! How does scrapping coursework and modular assessments make opportunity equal for every child!? Some children will crumble under the pressure of the final exam, regardless of how well they have grasped the subject or how great their classroom work is. It doesn't leave room for different ways of understanding and learning, how is this a step forward?

Literature Review: "Dance education: an examination of practitioners’ perceptions in secondary schools and the necessity for teachers skilled in the pedagogy and content of dance" (John Connel, Research in Dance Education, volume 10, issue 2, 2009)

In this article, the author has conducted a survey "examining practitioners’ beliefs, understanding and attitudes towards the teaching of dance in secondary schools" (Connel, 2009)

The aim of the study was to discover how the teachers in secondary schools that are responsible for delivering dance feel about the subject and how they approach it.

It was interesting that the findings suggested that a large proportion of the teachers of dance that made up the sample were non dance specialists. Out of 198 subjects, only 29 were trained dance teachers, and 8 dance artists. 146 were P.E teachers.

This seems strange to me. How would a parent feel if their child came home and told them that they were being taught maths by an English teacher with no experience or qualifications in Maths? This would be a problem surely? A school wouldn't dream of allowing a teacher with no experience in a higher profile subject to teach it, yet this is the case with dance.

Is this because there is a lack of dance practitioners applying? Or is it because most schools don't offer dance as an individual subject and therefore can't afford to employ a dance teacher to work with the P.E department? 

The study is 3 years old and since then a number of schools do now offer GCSE dance as a subject. It would be interesting to see how many of those posts are held by trained dance practitioners.

This study relates to my Inquiry as I am looking at dance teachers and dance students perceptions of the benefit of partaking in dance, and within the results of this study the respondents are quoted thusly:

"Participating in dance in school can improve understanding of the world in which young people live and this can be greatly increased through their artistic and aesthetic experiences of dance, enhancing their appreciation of the expressive nature of this subject." "In dance lessons, children have the opportunity to be creative and express themselves in different ways." "Children can improve their cognitive ability through the choreographic elements of dance and an appreciation of the fundamentals of movement; action, space, dynamics and relationships." "Performance with others, in the variety of relationships encountered through participation in dance, helps to assist a pupil’s consideration and appreciation of their physical, emotional, mental, social and cultural needs." "Participating in dance helps pupils develop an understanding and appreciation of their body in action, the necessity for safe practice, and the way their body moves and what happens inside the body as they move."                        (Connel, 2009) It will be interesting to see if similar opinions emerge from my study, which is gathering responses from teachers in the Private sector and in a community dance setting.

Module 3: First Campus Session

Today was the first campus session for the final module, and the very first one in the entire course I’ve been able to attend!!

It was a bit of a unique one, because Paula ended up doing two sessions, one 10-1 and one 2-5 I believe. Sarah Pearson has posted a fantastic overview of what was covered, very well laid out. It will be a useful point of reference for people who are still a bit foggy and unclear about where they are and what they need to do.

As Sarahs blog is such a good one I’ve decided to make my post about specific elements of the session that really helped me.

First of all: Literature Reviews.

I have, until now, had a massive fear of literature reviews. Here’s why. In my head, to do a literature review I had to:

• find an article/journal entry/case study etc and read it over and over until I had a firm grasp of it in its entirety.
• Decide whether it was completely and specifically relevant to my exact enquiry topic.
• If it was, write a full blown essay about the literature.

This is incorrect!!!

In truth it’s more like this:

• Find an article/journal/case study etc and read as much of it as is necessary. Scan it and see if any particular bits jump out as relevant to your study. If so, maybe read a bit deeper, but not necessarily! Just take from it what is valuable to you and don’t worry about the rest.
• Write about what the literature is about (briefly) and explain how it has influenced your thinking and your study (again, briefly and to the point). It doesn’t need to have done so in a massive way, but if it has contributed to your enquiry, boom! There’s a reference and something to back up your thinking!

Realizing this has been a break through for me and I feel it will make me a lot more comfortable and willing when it comes to finding sources and referencing them.

Secondly: Don’t be afraid to tweak!!

I came across two issues with my inquiry title and was terrified that these realizations were going to ruin my whole project! Preposterous way to look at it now I think about it!!

Paula explained that if you can justify the changes and explain why you’re making them, and how it will help your project be a success, it’s actually very simple!! Here are the issues I came across:

1.    I had planned to use children in my study aged 14-18 using two different groups from two different places of work. Upon my return after the holidays I discovered that in one of the groups 80% of my students were around 12 years old due to age groups being merged. I was left with maybe 2 or 3 14-18 year olds, and 13 12 year olds!! I was going to have to change the age bracket, but how can I justify the change? 
Well, my long term goal is to work in a secondary school as a dance teacher, and what’s the age bracket for secondary school children? 11-18!!! (once the new leaving age kicks in) Bingo!! I am changing the range range in my study in order to cover all the ages I am hoping to teach in my future career! A short, justifiable reason and it’s all good.

2.    The title. My title was going to be “An exploration of dance students and dance teachers perceived benefits of dance education within the styles of street/creative dance.”

My issue was, having drafted the surveys and began the process, it was becoming clear that the genre of dance was not going to be specific. Also, one of the groups I was studying could’t really be classes as “dance education” as it’s a youth dance project, and probably better falls into the category of “community dance”.

So I changed it to: “An exploration of dance students and dance teachers perceived benefits of partaking in dance classes”.

Here’s the justification I will use:

I changed “within the styles of street/creative dance” to “dance classes” because upon reviewing the settings of my inquiry I have realised that street/creative dance is not really relevant. In both settings I teach a range of styles, and not all of it can be accurately referred to as “dance education”. Also, when I achieve my goal of teaching full time in a secondary school I will be required to teach a range of dance styles, and therefore it would be unnecessary to specify the style being researched.

I have made a believable argument for the change, and made it clear how and why my project will benefit from the change, so it’s ok!!

So in summary

• Don’t be scared of literature reviews! Find a piece of writing (using summon on unihub is generally effective in finding what you want), read as much of it as you need in order to take something useful from it, then write about what that something was, why it is useful and how it will support your study! Simple! And as short or as long as is relevant.

• Changes and tweaks of you enquiry project are good!! It shows you are actively developing it. As long as you can justify why you’re doing it and prove that the change will benefit the project, you’re golden. (and this is actually more simple than it seems! Identify the problem, decide on the change you want to make and then FIND a way of justifying it)

I really hope this is helpful to people. These two revelations have really helped in calming me down (see sarahs blog for stress management techniques!!) and getting in control of my plans, I hope they help others too!!

Don’t forget, comment comment comment, blog blog blog!! The more we blog with each other the easier everything will be!!

Teacher Survey!

I am inundating the blogosphere with survey drafts!!!

This one is the first draft of the survey I am going to give to dance teachers. Any advice would be appreciated as always!

Teachers Survey 1st Draft

Final Draft for my Student Survey

Here is the final draft for my student survey! As a procrastinator and a perfectionist I would to spend much longer tweaking this, but I have a tight schedule, so it's going to the printer!! Thanks to all who have commented! 

Student Survey Final Draft

2nd draft, and hopefully final draft, of my student survey

Here's a link to my slightly revised and completed survey that I will be giving to my 14-18 year old students.

Survey 2nd draft

Have a look and tell me what you think! Right length? Right level of sophistication? clear and concise? None of the above!? Let me know, thanks. 

Action Plan

When browsing the module handbook and reader, time and time again I kept seeing how important it is to have a structured action plan.

Here's mine:

Action Plan

Week 1: 

• Write permission letters
• Issue permission letters to the under 16’s to give to parents
• Design surveys for both students and teachers
• Write 2 Literature reviews
• Re-work and re-structure as needed based on advice from peers and on the literature reviewed.

Week 2:

• Conduct the surveys
• Write 2 literature reviews
• Analyze the results of the survey. Look for patterns, contrasts etc.
• Design some short interviews based on the survey results with the view of exploring key issues further.

Week 3:

• Write 2 literature reviews
• Conduct 6 interviews with students

Week 4:

• Write 2 literature reviews
• Conduct 6 interviews with teachers

Week 5:

• Analyze the interviews, relating them back to survey responses, looking for patterns, contrasts, links etc.

Week 6:

• Conduct 2 observations, one in each research setting, looking for visual evidence of my findings, recording the observations in written form.
• Analyze the findings from the observations, looking for links or contrasts to the results found from the interviews and surveys.

Week 7:

• Concentrate on collaborating my findings from all 3 inquiry tools, relating my findings and analysis to other sources and literature, using these sources to further analyze and explore the findings, and to begin to construct my Critical Review.

Week 8:

• Work on my critical review

Week 9:

• Begin to build my artifact. 

Week 10:

• Work on my artifact.

Week 11:

• Begin constructing and writing my presentation.

Week 12:

• Re-draft, edit, fine tune everything! 

*** I want to know what everybody thinks! Too ambitious? Not ambitious enough? How does it compare to everybody elses plan? 

Paula, what do you think? Good or bad plan? ***

Taking the plunge!

Hello!

This is always the hardest bit, getting started again! It seems like such a long break since the last module!!

I've started the module off by re-reading everything I did last module and getting my head back in it again. I then had a conversation with Paula about where I was and just tried to clarify everything again!

I've spent a few hours today drafting a survey that will be my first form of data collection for my enquiry. The title of my enquiry is:

An exploration of dance teachers and dance students perceived benefits of dance education within the styles of street/creative dance.

The survey I have started with will be the one I give to students, aged 14-18, but I'm not happy with it yet. Here it is:

student survey 1st Draft

Please have a read and tell me what you think!