Primary research methods

When trying to decide on a target audience, i had to conduct some research of my own. This is primary research not secondary research as i was gathering the information myself instead of using somebody elses data.

There are many methods of gathering primary research such as questionnaires, interviews, focus groups and observations.

I chose to create a questionnaire as it was easy to gain views and opinions from and less time consuming then other options.

I decided that having interviews with my potential target audience would be very time consuming and harder to gain accurate views and opinoins.

Creating a focus group to discuss social realism with the potential of them being my target audience would be less beneficial and be more informal so would more than likely result in a discussion hindering my chances at gaining the information i want.

In this case making observations would not be necessary as i would be unable to make observations about what social realism films are being watched by people and when unles i knew them and then the result would be biased as the answers would all be similar due to similar age and likes. 

Questionnaires.

Questionnaires are used as part of a survey to gain information about a particular subject/matter. The format of which a questionnaire is presented could be either in paper form or in digital form such as online questionnaires. The types of questions that appear on a questionnaire are open and closed questions. Questionnaires can be used in most situations when somebody is trying to find opinions or views regarding a particular subject which in my case is social realism.

Open questions.

Open questions usually require longer responses for the person participating in the questionnaire as open questions are looking for the person to express their thoughts and opinions about the matter in a little bit of detail. Some examples of open questions are:

-What films do you watch?

-Why do you watch these films?

-What makes you interests you in a film?

A open question can follow a closed question such as Do you watch flms? What films do you watch?

Closed questions.

Closed questions usually require shorter responses for the person participating in the questionnaire as closed questions are looking for the person to answer using a simple response. Some examples of open questions are:

-Do you watch flms?

-Are you married?

- How old are you?

Quantitative research.

When gathering quantitative research usually  closed questions are present in the questionnaire. Quantitative research is used to determine facts and statistics. It allows for the information to easily be analysised and transformed into graphs and charts. Information such as age and marital status.

Qualititative research.

When gathering qualitative research usually  open questions are present in the questionnaire. Qualtitative research is used to get opinions, prefrences and views. The analysis for this research is usually in written form. Using this research should helpme to gather enough information about the audience of social realism for me to find a target audience and theme.