Ex-sex-tra

Hi guys just realised I haven’t blogged in a while, purely due to work commitments and the beginnings of my research! I have had the feeling of where to start for a while, even though I have been reviewing literature but in the past couple of weeks I have become more into the swings of things. I have started on the first drafts of my chapters 1, 2 and 3 and have designed and perpared questionnaires, focus groups and workshops.

I have designed a chart of goals that I have stuck too but have found a few elements that have fallen back a week or two because of my workplace’s requirements. For example, workshop dates and handing out questionnaires. But I’m now all up to date. Last week myself and Stephanie Dye hosted two evenings of focus groups to two mixed groups of 19+ young adults. This went down really well, a lot of data was gathered which has affected the shaping of other questions in other instruments. From the note taking and recordings of the focus groups I will be able to use this data to devise the theatrical performance within the project Ex-sex-tra.

I have also emailed questionnaires to a selective sample group, the reasons for doing this is to get opinions and answers from professional or others with experience within the field of the topic. For example; Sexual health Nurses, Doctors, parents, teachers and other drama practitioners. The reasons for sending via email are because of the time scale of the project, this also allows the sample groups to individually fill these questionnaires out in their own time. I sent these out yesterday and I am already receiving questionnaires back today.

Today was a very productive day within my workplace, myself and Stephanie held three workshops to the BTEC students and Foundation Degree students; over all 102 participants over the course of the day. The BTEC students are the projects target audience within my workplace; they are the perfect age as the majority have just left year 11 in school which is the higher age group of our target audience in local schools (Year 9 – Year 11). The Foundation Degree year 2s are mature students which allowed myself as a researcher to explore the topic in more detail; as they have two years of high level training in Chickenshed where they were able to apply their knowledge of inclusive theatre to the workshop.

The BTEC workshops were split into two; each year group had their own workshop which consisted of an introduction to our project, a sexual health awareness quiz – which quite a few were surprised with the answers! A discussion on how they were taught sex education and finally filling out a consent form attached with a questionnaire. These workshops lasted for 1 hour each, the aim was to introduce them to the idea of the project and also get them thinking about sexual health awareness to prepare them to fill out the questionnaire and for next week’s practical workshop where in groups they will be set activities based on sexual health awareness using theatre.

The third workshop was for the second year Foundation Degree students this was a 1 hour practical workshop exploring sexual health awareness through activities and also a quiz. This was all rounded off with all the participants completing the feedback I had designed along with the consent forms. This workshop was to pilot the projects workshop activities to stimulate the devising of the theatrical performance and before next week’s practical workshops to the BTEC students.

All three of these workshops went smoothly and great primary data has been formed from these. The responses from students were varied; ‘I know this all ready’, ‘What’s an STI?’, ‘I didn’t know that’, ‘That is funny’ etc I have not looked over all the responses to the questionnaires and feedback forms yet. But once I have recorded all the data I will be able to have a more defined answer to whether the participants thought it was beneficial or not.

I have set some aims in which I am going to achieve by next Monday 4th October;
- Record all data from questionnaires and feedback
- Finish off draft of chapters 1, 2 and 3 – I currently have chapter 1 drafted, and 2 and 3 partly with notes and the odd paragraph here and there.
- Make finishing touches to the two practical workshops for next Tuesday 5th October.
- Organise workshops for Finchley Youth Theatre
- Write a scene for the performance – which I have started to write

I think by writing this aims up on my blogger it will make me more determined to achieve them as I than can report back next week with what was achieved. I’m really looking forward to Friday’s campus session, so will see you all there!