The following will be an analysis of 2 questionnaires that I sent out in order to understand more about my target audience. The first questionnaire was sent out to teachers of my target audience to develop an understanding of how Irish mythology is taught in schools. The second and arguably most important was directed at my target audience, this was to determine their media consumption and likes, as well as their current knowledge of Irish mythology. Unfortunately, the release of these questionnaires was delayed a couple of weeks, to accommodate for when children would be sent back to in person school. I will not be covering all of the questions from the questionnaires, as it would take too long and it's not necessary. Not all of the questions are still applicable as naturally my project has progressed since the questionnaires were sent out so I will just covering the most relevant and important ones.
Teacher Results
This questionnaire was sent out to teachers of my target audience, which happened to be 2nd to 4th class teachers. I received 5 replies to the questionnaire which I assume is most if not all of the teachers of these classes from the school. I will also not be including every question for analysis in this review. My project has progressed to a point where so of these questions are no longer relevant, so I will be analysing those that still pertain to the project.
As I had learned from the interview with my aunt previously, Irish mythology is now built into the primary school curriculum under the subject History, which had not been the case when I was in school. She also informed me that a story will also be then used as a theme throughout the rest of the subjects for that specific period e.g. brought into drama, art etc. So I was not surprised to see that 100% of teachers include Irish mythology in their classrooms. However, I was not expecting to see that such a large range of stories are taught. I had assumed that the same few stories would be used and then rotated out. Knowing the myths that are taught also gives me a good basis for the knowledge that the children should know and will help me in deciding which stories I will be including or excluding.
I had originally included this question to determine if a teacher's respect for Irish mythology had an influence on the amount of time they spent teaching about it. However, after I learnt that Irish mythology was given a permanent position in the curriculum, it has now become just an interesting viewpoint to discuss. From my own experience with learning about Irish mythology in school, I did not think teachers cared much about Irish mythology. With this personal viewpoint I was happily surprised to see that the teachers surveyed expressed that they all saw value in learning about Irish mythology. There is always the potential that the results maybe skewed slightly based on the positive message I was delivering with my questionnaire, however I don't believe that to be true considering the answers I received to the follow up question shown below. I personally found it enlightening to hear the views of the teachers and am appreciative on behalf of Ireland's children that all the teachers I have gotten feedback from understand the importance of sharing Irish mythology with the youth of Ireland.
The following questions were developed in order to understand the teaching of Irish mythology in schools and to figure out if it has reduced or increased over time. Based on these answers it would appear to me that although Irish mythology is taught in school now more consistently, to introduce more examples of it in to children's lives it may be better to include this at home. Thankfully, although the output I am developing is based at home learning it could also easily be used and adopted into a classroom setting.
The second section of this questionnaire was based on teaching strategies in the classroom. As my project has advanced to no longer be aimed in this area, many of these questions are no longer relevant to the new direction I am going in with my project. For this reason I will be only including the question below in the following analysis.
From my review of these answers, it seems as if the common thread in these suggestions are creating an experience for learning that is engaging and interactive. I'm hoping that making my game a fun experience will create an environment that my target audience will want to learn more about Irish mythology.
Children (Target Audience) Questionnaire
The questionnaire was sent out to classes from 2nd to 4th, this was to cover my target audience age bracket of 8 to 10. However, with this being said I got 6 replies to the questionnaire and the participants were all aged 9. Also as the participants of this questionnaire are children, I will not be including any of the answers which are comment based, only the multiple choice questions.
This questionnaire was split into two parts, the first part was to collect information on the interests and consumption of media from my target audience. The purpose of this was to better understand the types of content that my audience likes to watch and engage in, so that I can better develop an output to suit their interests.
One of the questions I asked was what the participants favourite book or series were. Below are a selection of the responses which I will be looking into further in developing my illustration style.
For the same purpose I also asked what were a number of the participants favourite tv shows and movies that my target audience enjoy. Below is a selection of these results. Unlike with the previous books, I am more familiar with some of these movies and tv shows, which gives me a bit of an advantage in highlighting engaging and interesting aspects.
This questionnaire also helped me to verify a suspicion I had about children's interest in Greek mythology. I was even surprised to find that my target audience has knowledge of what I would see as lesser known gods like Pandora.
When I created this questionnaire I didn't really have a preferred idea of what I wanted my output to be or what I thought my audience would most benefit from. I was hoping that the answers from this question I might shed some light. However, being as the questionnaires were delayed I had to develop concepts for output without these results. I think it was still the right decision to go the gamification route though as is proved by the next question I asked. As a follow up question, I asked if participants had a preferred way to learn from the list. The results were overwhelmingly from movies and games.
The second section of the questionnaire was based on the target audience's knowledge of Irish mythology.
I was very pleased to see that 50% surveyed said that they found Irish mythology to be very interesting. This also gives me more confidence that my project will be well received and that it will not be rejected based on the subject matter. On the contrary, ~17% found it to be not very interesting. This gives me the opportunity to make that section of my audience more interested in Irish mythology with my project.
The results of the following question are very interesting however not very surprising. This confirms the suspicion I had that children are only learning about Irish mythology from school and not being introduced to it at home etc. This is where I feel my project will be able to come in as a solution. By presenting Irish mythology in a game format, it will create a more engaging and fun form of learning for the target audience and their families.
The purpose of this question was to understand the characters and myths that my target audience. This will help in figuring out which stories I will or will not include in my final output. However I was surprised to see that 1 of the participants did not know who St. Patrick was, as I would have thought this would be a nationally known figure.
Conclusion
Overall, I feel that the results of these questionnaires have been invaluable in giving me a window into the minds of my target audience and their mentors. This has left me with some great insights which I can use to develop and advance my game to best suit the needs and wants of my audience, and on the whole design a creative output that will connect my audience with their native mythology.