Primary Data

When considering on how to get a fair and unbiased judgement within my EPQ, I decided to conduct primary research in the form of a questionnaire, which was sent out to teachers in order to gather different opinions on the diversity of the current curriculum. I used Survey Monkey in order to do this, which was sent, through social media, to teachers around the UK.

Within my questionnaire, I used a mixture of both open and closed questions, in order to allow the survey to be quick and practical for teachers taking it, but also to allow me to gather comments and opinions on the national curriculum. The questionnaire that I sent included these ten questions:
'Can you name up to ten novels/plays/poems you taught in the last year?'
'Can you name up to ten other novels/plays/poems you taught in the last five years?'
'Can you name another ten novels/plays/poems you taught in the last 10+ years?'
'What are your opinions of the diversity of the current curriculum? (in relation to ethnicity and nationality, focusing on the writers and the stories themselves)'
'On a scale of 1 to 10, how more diverse do you feel the curriculum was when you began teaching in comparison to the curriculum now?'
'Has this changed throughout your career?'
'If so, do you feel that this has made the curriculum better or worse for students?'
'Thinking of the diversity of texts you teach, are there any changes you would like to see in the future?'
'Do you have any further comments about the diversity of the English Literature curriculum?'

When reviewing the answers to these questions, I noticed some limitations, one of which is shown in the first three questions. I left these questions open to see the diversity of the different texts stated, however got many short answers such as 'no' or 'yes'. If I was to do this primary research again, I would word the questions in a way that would allow me to only get examples of texts that have been taught in the past year(s).

However, there were many strengths within my questionnaire, such as the sample being the target population of teachers, (over 1-10+ years), allowing me to gain insight into a different view of my topic, along with multiple comments from teachers on how they believe the curriculum should change in order to make it more diverse and inclusive.

However, in many responses, such as the one pictured below, teachers tended to leave helpful opinions on if/how the curriculum should be changed, along with background information of the differences between when they taught in the past compared to present day.

In my next post, I plan to post the results to my primary data in order to analyse them and come to conclusions based around these.