Nicole's BAPP Blog

  I completed all of the 4 interviews on 22nd February and I must say I felt such pride and accomplishment. The open-ended structure of the course sometimes makes me feel like im going around in circles, so the organisation and time scale structure of a Gantt chart has been very helpful. I also finished annotating the recorded interviews today so I feel well on my way to the analysis process! Reflection Deciding to distribute the questionnaires first was a useful change to my initial plan, some of the data I expected to obtain wasn't clear or detailed enough for analysis, therefore the questionnaire results altered my interview questions. In addition because I didn't get as many responses to my questionnaire I decided to interview 4 people rather than 2 like I initially planned.  I also decided to write 'Notes for Participants-  Please think about the emotions and feelings you had attached to the experiences you describe as a dance captain. Also try to expand on you...

As suggested by Adesola's blog I watched the TED YouTube video about 'The Power of Collaboration.' with Dr. Shelle VanEtten de Sanchez https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=387&v=VmQVNE-MbKI Networking is not always an easy task but it is so important to continue to get work as a freelance dancer. I never really saw it as a collaboration till I watched this video. The talk has encouraged me to look deeper into collaboration in relation to my inquiry: How do dance captains collaborate? Why is collaboration important? How can collaboration be improved? Dr. Shelle offered 5 essential tips which I have found really helpful... 1. Let go of your ego, let other people edit my ideas. In my professional practice as a freelancer dancer I believe I am good at adapting to change in each job I do and listening to suggestions how to make myself better. 2. Practice makes perfect, we can learn and practice and perfect how to collaborate as it is an ongoing process. D uri...

The skype call today was to see how how we were getting on with our inquiry. *Maria, the supervisor who lead the call reminded us to identify... 1. What is the problem you are addressing/ formed the inquiry title? 2. How have you choose to look at it? 3. Why is it important for your practice? 4. How are you going to use the analysis of the information? *The concept that the inquiry needs to be zoomed in on to make the inquiry more specific but could also cause a shift resulting in unexpected the questions evolving from the inquiry. Zoming in on the inquiry is important for framing the interview/survey questions and narrowing the literature search. *The literature review is a development from module 2, it can outline the original talking points of literature within the general field of the inquiry but it should also go into more depth in particular the themes emerged from data collection. * It is also important to zoom out too (especially if you feel stuck), looking at the i...

Making the questionnaire user friendly......... 1. Time is always limited in the arts industry so I have tried to make the questionnaire a completion time of 15-20 minutes. 2. I will aim to send the questionnaires on a Saturday, Sunday, Monday or Tuesday as I know these are common days off for theatres/productions. 3. I have designed the questionnaire so there is only one word answer or multiple choice to save time, this will also help me to compare the data quantitatively in a graph or pie chart format. 4. Many of the dance captains are not native English speaker, I have used simplistic language for those who have English as their second language. 5. I want to accommodate different mediums participants could receive and fill out the questionnaire. a) Print out the questionnaire to fill out circling by the multiple choice options and writing their answers in pen and then scanning the document back to me b) Not everyone will have access to a printer, therefore I have sug...

The most challenging area of module 2 for me was the Methodological framework so I am trying to straighten out my thoughts.... What is the theoretical underpinning of my inquiry? My beliefs..... I believe there are a set of skills that are required for dance captains to carry out their duties for the production. I believe this to be true because I have experienced dance captains and had the opportunity to observe their approach to the role. I also believe that the transition process from dancer to dance captain is the key time where the learning of the duties and the ability to identify and develop skills to perform the duties should form. I also feel from from the existing literature on Web 2.0 platforms that there is a lack of support or training for dance captains to transition successfully and therefore causing problems with the relationship between the dance captain and the dancers and the management team (from my experience). The assumption that because a person is good at r...

Understanding and evaluating theoretical paradigms and methodological approaches to my research... What are the ethical implications of myself being an insider researcher to the inquiry and what ethical considerations should I take into account? The responses the participants give are based on the questions I ask, I do not want to offend the participant or breach confidentiality. The aim of the inquiry is to gather more knowledge, not to just confirm my beliefs and existing insight on dance captains. What is the significance of interviewing to gather data? Interviewing is important so I can guide the participant to talk about their feelings and experiences as a dance captain. It will also allow me to observe personality/communication skills that they are not aware of. For example if they clear and confident speakers it would suggest their confidence to communicate.  I have decided to only interview dance captains I am no longer working with or know anyone in the team, this i...

I am blogging to ask for any acting or previous dance captains to comment bellow! Networking has been important throughout the BAPP course, module one taught me to establish my existing networks and how they are beneficial and very important to my professional practice. Now as a freelance dancer it is even more important and in this final module I want to exhaust all networks for my inquiry. Being part of the blogging community will hopefully help me to find more candidates to fill out the questionnaires or interview for my inquiry about dance captains. I have been using my networks within the freelance dance community and now its time to reach out to the blogging BAPP community! Networking is about establishing a connection and becoming part of a community, networking has helped me to get jobs, confirm queries from finding out where the best place to take class is in different countries to learning how to do a self-employed tax return! So what im trying to say is networking can ...