Evaluation.
Overall I found out a lot doing the research unit I learnt about different research techniques and how and where they are best put to use also I got lots of information on my topic TV on Demand. I put the research techniques and methods to good use when left to research TV on Demand. I am glad we got to choose what research methods we wanted to use and I liked the fact that it wasn’t all written work and I got to interview people face to face and take part in my own and other people’s focus groups. When I was writing everything up from all the research I had done I realized just how much I had found out due to learning about research and the different techniques to use.
Whilst doing my secondary research I found a lot of sources from all over the internet, my favorite website I used was the guardian in the media section because I found them most interesting and reliable and also not too boring. I think I should have dug a bit deeper and found more sources from completely different places as some of mine are different pages on the same website.
I did find it quite difficult to find all my sources and get them from different areas and it was also very time consuming so it made it feel harder than what it actually was. I do however think if I had managed my time better I could have got better sources because I think personally if I had of been stricter on breaks and working form home I could have gained better sources and overall maybe a better grade.
I am glad that I did secondary research first as the sources where then all there and to hand so when doing my primary research I found it easy to cross reference and add my sources into my report and use them to back up statements and examples that I used throughout. It was really useful to be able to use these sources in my primary research and report.
At the beginning I knew what information I wanted to get out of the sources but I feel that it didn’t really go to plan that way, It was different than I expected and it was a lot more work than I thought It would be as I couldn’t just go on any website and use it as a source it had to be completely related to my topic and reliable. I got enough sources to be able to continue with the project but I think the more you had the better and easier the next step would be.
I found the primary research much more reliable as I was getting it first hand so it wasn’t padded to make it look good it was just the results from what I had done. I choose people for my focus group from my class which I suppose I could of made a better choice and got people from outside of school to take part who used TV on Demand, but I knew that the classmates I interviewed used TV on Demand and it would be easy to analyze as they were all students of around the same age. I did get useful information out of them though and they all seemed keen to have their own say to get across what they think About TV on Demand, where we were all in the same boat and taking part in the research unit even though we had different topics I think using people from my class was good because they knew what they wanted to hear when they were doing their focus group so they gave good detailed answers I suppose hoping I would do the same in return. Some of my interviewees in my focus group had the same topic as me so I found it easier as they had similar questions to me and knew what answers they wanted to receive so they gave me as good ones back. However I do think my focus group could have lasted longer and if I had done it in even a different quiet place in the school I might have been able to get better and more serious answer out of my interviewees.
I chose someone from outside of school to take part in my one on one interview who I new regularly used TV on Demand therefore in a way I knew what I was letting myself in for and would get decent answers. I think where I knew my interviewee previous to this they felt that they didn’t need to be so serious and in a way I had to urge them to go deeper into their answers and make them longer and better for my results. If I was to do this again I would definitely try to use someone who I didn’t know so that it was more of a professional interview and wasn’t so laid back. I hope that doing it this way it would give me better answers and a more in depth interview.
My last primary research technique was questionnaires I now know I should have spent a lot more time creating my questionnaires, and I wish I had really thought long and hard about the questions I was asking in them and maybe moved towards a slightly different field of TV on Demand. This is because when writing my report it all began to become a bit too similar however this gave me a good chance to cross reference a lot of thing but I would of like each one of my primary research’ to have taken a slightly different angle on TV on Demand as a whole. If I had done this I think I would of ended out with a longer report with different sections for each type of research and it would have allowed me to find out more on my topic. Therefore if I was to take part in a project like this again I would defiantly think about my research methods a lot more before deciding to use them, that way I would know which methods and techniques would get me the best answers and feedback I was looking for and overall It would be easier in the long run.
