Primary and Qualitative Research

Primary and Qualitative Research

In our lesson we learnt about Research on factual documentaries. I learnt many various research techniques mainly focusing on primary and qualitative research. In the class we were shown a range of tv documentaries.

Techniques

• Interviews - An interview is a talk with an individual, asking them questions about the said theme of your work. Interviews come with a series of questions that vary from being simple questions to in depth questions. Eg; Interviewers such as Jeremy Paxman use very difficult questions to knock their interviewee's out of concentration, and he often repeats his questions multiple times so that he can hopefully get the answer he was hoping for, that often makes people uncomfortable.

After watching an interview from Jeremy Paxman, I discovered that he uses a Semi structured method. In his interviews, Jeremy tends to interrupt the people he interviews so that he can demand an answer from the person. Paxman corners his interviewee's and manages to annoy the people he talks to. He's a demanding man that starts off with a simple approach. When he asks a question he repeats it constantly to get the answer he wants.

• Questionnaires - A Questionnaire is a sheet or multiple sheets of paper with various questions on. this is pretty much what interviewers use. The questions are usually targeted at certain audiences and are also in various difficulties. sometimes some questions can even be very difficult to answer. Some of the questions can require simple 'yes or no' answers, whereas others require paragraphs of an answer.

After watching 'The Apprentice' we find that they give direct questions to their clients, they judge the people and their business plans. they give honest opinions and they get to the point. since they are extremely professional they use statistics often. they prefer to dismiss CV's and like to get Too tense and make the clients nervous and catch all small reactions.

• Observations - An observation is where you have a specific topic that needs researching and you observe and take notes of what you have learned. for Example  in our lesson we saw a Louis Theroux Documentary on America's most hated family.
  

After watching Louis Theroux interview america's most hated family, I'd say that Louis uses a structured method. he already knows what he's going to ask. Louis also has a subtle interviewing style. From watching the video I saw that Louis didnt seem very comfortable when he interviewed the family.