The Merits and Limitations of differing tools of inquiry

I think the tools of inquiry used within a professional investigation into a subject depend completely on that subject; for example, there are questions that couldn’t be answered by observation alone, important insights from professionals that could only be obtained perhaps by deep discussions or cleverly worded questions that provoke the desired responses. I had a thought about my particular needs within my professional inquiry and came to some conclusions about the merits and limitations of these tools.

• Observation

When I looked at observation as a tool of enquiry, I thought about how it could be of use to inquiries in general and I think if your inquiry looks at current practice within theatre, or practice in training, Observation would be an invaluable tool due to the fact that you have to observe a situation in order to reflect on it and distil your outcomes and conclusions from it. With regards to my specific inquiry, Celebrity casting in musical theatre and whether the industry needs it to survive, I can’t see a way to use observation as a tool of inquiry. My questions are subjective, one professional could feel very different to another and so other than the surface observation that Celebrities have been cast in theatre, when they were cast and how successful they were, observation cannot answer the deeper questions that I have and so I will not be using it as a central tool for my inquiry.

• Interview

I think interviews are an excellent way to gather information, unlike a questionnaire, in an Interview, the researcher can ask the interviewee to elaborate on answers, go further in-depth into questions where the interviewee feels passionate or has strong opinions. Some of the main problems with interviews however are that they could be time consuming to conduct, and some interviews could be more productive than others making it difficult to ensure that there is a fair and even balance between opposing views, again this is dependant on how emptive or passionate the interviewee is. I am of the opinion that the merits of interviews far outweigh their disadvantages, it is a perfect tool to get precise information and opinions, but I think it is important to make sure ethical guidelines are strictly adhered to.

• Focus Groups

I think the use of focus groups can be a very useful tool of inquiry. During a discussion, some participants may be very persuasive about a particular point of view and other participants have the ability to present arguments to these opinions and vice versa. I think focus groups would be a very useful tool for me due to the fact from my preliminary conversations with colleagues, I have discovered that the professional performers are generally split over the idea of celebrity casting. I do however think that it will be hard to make sure that the focus groups are conducted ethically, one person may be very out spoken and take over the discussion, I think the researcher has to be in control and make sure that the discussion always returns to topic and ensuring that opinions are aired evenly

• Questionnaires

Questionnaires can be a very difficult tool of inquiry; I think it is very important to ensure that the correct questions are asked and that they are asked in the correct order. Questionnaires will be an important part of my inquiry due to their wide reaching scope to include theatre patrons and audience members. It would be impractical to interview hundreds of audience members but I think most would be willing to take a few minutes to let me know their opinions on the subject on celebrity casting, even just using my social networks I have enough contacts that are not professional performers to ensure that I could get hundreds of responses and be able to collect vast amounts of data to ensure that I can get a good overall feel for what the audience wants, and how they feel about the current state of musical theatre. Questionnaires also have their limitations, assuming that the questions are worded very carefully and asked ethically, this can leave the researcher with “black and White” answers where there is no room for elaboration. Questionnaires will be vital in my inquiry; they will enable me to get information from a large group of people in a relatively easy and non-time consuming way.