Primary source analysis
Submission: To be submitted at the end of Week 3, Term 3 with the Full Folio draft submission
Spend one or two weeks + homework on this
Finding interviewees
The documents below should really help you.
The Word Document is a working list of interviewees that you have under consideration, you will need to keep this in your physical Research Project folder, and have them handy and ready for a teacher to look at.
You should be working closely with your teacher to progress these interviews as quickly as possible, but before anything can be done you must have checked your "reach out" script with a teacher.
The PDF is a handy explainer document and within it you will find the difference between a personal, academic, and expert interviewee, ways each kind of interview can help you with your Research Project, as well as tips on how to find academic and expert interviewees.
Potential Interviewees document
How to search for an interviewee
Constructing interview questions template
Interview Analysis
There are a number of ways that you can conduct an interview analysis, and in this section we will include two examples of completed interview analysis. Remember, these are to get you thinking and are not the only, or the definitive, way to complete interview analysis.
In the first example, the student has conducted three seperate interviews and decided to combine them into one source analysis.
In the second example, the student has completed their source analysis based off of just one interview.
Example 1 (Multiple interviews analysed)
The student has clearly articulated how many interviews were requested, and who they were sent to.
The student has also analysed the credibility of his interviewees by focusing on their credentials and the research they have undertaken. This may look different for you depending on the kind of interview you are analysing.
The student has concluded this section with a brief summary of things they think are relevant for the reader to know.
The student has used a table to outline the questions that were asked in the interview and whether they were closed/open and fact/opinion. They have also included a column where they indicate which focus question each interview question was designed to help address. The first two questions address the "conducting ethical research" requirements, make sure you have something similar.
The student has used another table to choose four questions to analyse further. It is important to note that it is not a requirement that you analyse every question that you asked. You should keep in mind that you are trying to demonstrate that you have asked intelligent questions designed to provoke meaningful responses.
You will note that in the "questions" column that the student hasn't repeated the questions, rather they have justified WHY they chose to ask that question.
The student has used colour to highlight where in their judgment the interviewee really assisted them in answering their focus questions.
If your interviewee's answers were very long, you could include partial answers.
The student has also drawn conclusions about the key findings of their interviewees. This is not the only way to do this, you could write an effective written summary to the same effect.
Your own key findings might include things similar to this list, but they are really based on your own judgment. Being able to draw key ideas out of information is something you need to practice, and the Research Project is designed to help you practice this skill.
This section is the familiar analysis of credibility, bias, etc. You will not that the student has decided to speak generally about all interviewees because all interviewees were from a similar field, with similar credentials, and all broadly agreed with each other. Your section here might read differently depending on your responses.
The capabilities section is covered here. The student has spoken quite generally. You might want to look for more depth if you are seeking a very high grade.
The student has decided to provide the reader with background information justifying why this interviewee was chosen, along with a brief analysis of how this will assist her capability development.
The student has used the table on the left-hand side to justify how their questions were constructed. For example, what kind of question was it? Why was it chosen?
The student has annotated the answers in the right-hand table using a colour code, and has analysed things like when the interviewee has:
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Defined the issue;
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When the answers support other research;
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Things the answers point indirectly to/bigger issues at play;
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When the answers were interesting/provided a new avenue of thought within the outcome;
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When the answers provoked further research
The student provided some analysis on how the interview information contrasts with her secondary research here, with more in-depth analysis of how this interview helped her develop her capabilities.
Survey Analysis
Survey analysis is about exploring different aspects of why and how you built your survey questions in the way that you did, along with analysis and reflection of the results. Please use the words in bold to help you develop your understandings and focus your thinking around how you might replicate this for your own source analysis.
Download a PDF of this example here:
The student has provided key information around the amount of responses received, along with who the demographics targeted were. They have also discussed the methods used to share the survey.
The student has included the results from their first question and then justified why they chose to ask this question. They have also completed analysis of the respondents demographics and how this effects the survey results reliability, credibility, and usability.
The student has included a graphic highlighting the results from question 2. They have also highlighted a key piece of information about the graph in a text box, and explored how the ages of respondents impact the bias of the results.
The student has again used a graph to represent results from question 3 before analysing what the results might mean. Importantly, they have constructed a hypothesis about what the "prefer not to say" vote might mean.
The student has analysed and reflected on their own questioning. They have been able to provide some constructive criticism of their survey here and assessed how this might limit their survey results validity.
The student has included some analysis of the results in question 5, and identified how the responses reflect his audiences understandings of the issue.
The student has been able to discuss surprising results in the survey responses and how these findings contradict or complicate other sources. They have also been able to use their judgment to make decisions about which source was more valid, and justified that judgment.
The student has drawn conclusions about the key findings of this question, and discussed how this information supports other key sources.
The student has clearly justified the inclusion of this question by talking about how it was built on the secondary research. They have also discussed how this finding might mean more in-depth research might need to be conducted.
The student has again justified this question and talked about how the findings didn't match their expectations and challenged their assumptions.
The student discussed how this question was built around an idea they had about how homeless outreach might be delivered through business channels. They have performed in-depth analysis of the results and discussed how this information might inform their outcome.
The student has assessed the overall credibility and reliability of the results of their survey, along with a short summary of how engaging with this process developed their capability.
Example 2 (Single interview analysed)