I’m going to compare a range of research tools, methods and skills to find the most effective and reliable way of conducting research to find out information that will help me with the filming of the promotional video for the national emergency services museum. I will discuss the methods, reliability, relevance and similarities between primary research methods like formal interviews, vox pops and questioners.

Primary research

Primary research is research conducted by yourself with no work by anyone else contributing to your end results. I will conduct some form of primary research before filming the video for the museum. Conducting primary research onto of secondary is a good idea as it will give me information and views given by the general public who have been or may go to museums and I can use their feedback to help make the video more successful.

Vox Pop

A Vox Pop is where you approach a member of the public in a public aria like a park or a street whilst usually filming and recording audio, if they consent to being part of the research you continue by asking them questions tailored to the information you need. If I do a Vox Pop, I will ask questions like “when was the last time you went to a museum?”, “what did you like the most about the museum?”, “how old are you?”. The answers to these questions will be useful to me because the question “how old are you?” will tell me the age of the target market so I can tailor my video to the target market to make the museum more appealing to its target market so more people will visit. The pros of Vox Pops are that you can get allot of information out of someone in a short amount of time and the answers will be long expanded answers rather than closed yes/no questions. Another pro about Vox Pops is that there a very reliable source of information because it’s a face to face conversation so its harder for the person being interviewed to lie. The cons of Vox Pops are that allot of people don’t like to be filmed and/or are busy in public places so don’t have time to stop and be questioned.

Formal interview

A formal interview is where you arrange an interview with a person to discuss their views and experiences with a certain topic. They usually take allot more time because they have to be organised then the lighting, cameras, audio and seating arrangements have to be set up. They have some positives though, as they take longer to conduct than a Vox Pop the interviewer tends to be able to get more and better quality information because they have more time to carefully plan the question that they’re going to ask the person. Also the person being interviewed arranged to be there so they will have more time for the interview so they will usually answer the questions in more depth. whereas with a Vox Pop the questions and answers tend to be more rushed because the person being interviewed will have been stopped on there way to go somewhere so they will be more keen to leave. This is probably the most reliable form of research as it’s a face to face interview with someone who wants to be there to give their views and experiences so they wont lie and will give more accurate information.

survey

A survey is a list of questions usually either on paper or an internet survey. They tend to be more closed of yes/no questions. They are good for getting allot of information very quickly because they don’t require an interviewer to go to a person to get them to fill out the questions, the questionnaire can be emailed or shared on social media and can reach a very wide audience allot quicker than other methods.  They are also good for getting quantitative data, its one of the easiest ways of getting quantitative primary data. As good as questioners are, there not the most reliable source for research due to the fact that there not face to face and anyone can do it if they want to its very easy and common for someone to lie about there answers they put.

similarities

Formal interviews and vox pops are virtually the same. They ask the same questions and answers but there more time has been spent over the question and answer resulting in more accurate data. Questionnaires aren’t so similar as there not usually face to face nor do they share similar questions, they accumulate quantitative data.

Secondary research

Secondary research is data and information collected from souses such as books and primarily the internet, its research conducted and published by someone else. It’s a very quick way to get information as you just look up a previous study or set of information.

Comparing research

Secondary research is useful for getting quantitative data very quickly as you can look it up on the internet and find usually find what you need. It has downsides though, you cant always find what you want and sometimes when you do its not exactly tailored to your needs. Also, data collected from sites of the internet cant be trusted fully because you weren’t there to oversea the study so therefore cant guarantee the legitimacy of the data. Primary research is a very effective way of getting reliable, relevant information but it can take a while to get the information. Its generally more reliable because you conducted the study yourself so know that the results are true, the data collected is also usually more relevant because you can tailor the questions to your needs to get the most useful results.

Conclusion

I think that the best way to conduct research is to use some secondary research from more reliable and trusted internet sites but mostly rely on primary research as its more reliable and relevant. The best ways to collect primary research is by conducting vox pops and questionnaires, this is because questionnaires can collect allot of quantitative data quickly because it can go to a wider audience and vox pops can get reliable information from face to face interviews with people and they’re quicker than setting up a formal interview with someone meaning you can do more vox pops and get more data.

My secondary research

I will need to get information before filming the video for the museum. For some of the information the best way is through secondary research on the internet. I will get the map of the building from the museums website http://www.emergencymuseum.org.uk/map.html. Ill get the route to the museum from google maps https://www.google.co.uk/maps and the tram times from the south Yorkshire travel website https://www.travelsouthyorkshire.com/. Because I’m going to need to get some exterior shots of the building ill need to make sure that’s its not raining on the day of the shoot and ill check the weather on the BBC weathers website http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/. The last thing I’ll need to know is the opening times of the museum which i will also get from the museums website http://www.emergencymuseum.org.uk/map.html.