Exploring ethics within my inquiry

Developing ethical frameworks for my inquiry

I have come up with the following ethical framework for my professional inquiry.

My participants are female professional ballet dancers in the corps de ballet of a ballet company, a dance teacher who has performed in the corps de ballet of a professional ballet company within the past 10 years and a small focus group of ten people who will fill out a semi structured questionnaire after completing their solo performances at the Uno show. The focus group will have participants from four different age categories, they will all be female and have a range of experience of working in a professional company.

I have chosen the female ballet dancers in the corps de ballet because that is the area of expertise most relevant to my profession and also where I am currently at within my professional practice. I chose to study specifically dancers within the last decade due to having a variety of contacts of this era to interview on the topic.

I have chosen to also interview a dance teacher who has performed in the corps de ballet of a professional ballet company within the past 10 years to get a reflective insight from an ex-professional dancer. As she has had time to reflect and lookback on her time as a professional she may have a different perspective on my inquiry topic after some time away from the profession.

Due to the company having a solo performance during my research period I have decided to utilise this effectively and invite performers to complete my questionnaire once the show has finished. I have chosen my participants within the Coastal City Ballet company as I can be sure of a range of ages and experience dancing professionally.

I will contact all participants via email for their consent to participate. I will also be able to talk to the participants in person as they are my peers. Contacting the dance teacher with professional experience will be simple also as I have her email address and am able to conduct a skype interview as well as visit them in person.

In the event that anyone within the ballet company declines my request to participate there are up to ten other dancers in the company I am able to ask. I also have a number of other dance teachers with professional experience in a corps de ballet whom I am able to ask to take part in my interview process should my first choice refuse.

All participants will remain anonymous and will be referred to as ballet dancers/dance teacher. I will carefully word my interview and questionnaire questions so that they do not pre-empt my expected response from participants.

I will compose email invitations explaining the purpose of the inquiry; to expand my knowledge on whether the context a dancer performs in changes the way they dance. The form attached in the email will need to be signed by the participants and sent back to myself in order to proceed. I will also only be interviewing dancers over the age of 18.  The inquiry will identify the variables which motivate professional dancers and enable them to maintain their skill level whilst performing. My hypothesis is based upon my own experience and the informal feedback I have received from peers in the dance community.