There are many advantages of using the questionnaire such as it’s:
• Quick: it collected large amounts of data within a short period of time.
• Reliable: Questionnaires are seen as reliable data the fact that I used a questionnaire within my research shows that if someone else repeated my questionnaire they should get similar results.
• Representative: Due to the different ages and sexes I chose within my questionnaire it made sure my results would be representative of all Hampstead sixth students.
The use of the questionnaire gave me an insight into our reader’s perspective of what they wanted in the school magazine. Once I got the results it made sure that the information I gained would then be included in the magazine, and as this is what they wanted in would then appeal to the student readership. Also as sixth form students are the target audience it’s sensible to get results which ask them what theY want.
This question gave me a better insight into what the students wanted within the magazine, which would have been more relevant to them compared to the other feature questions, as it gave the options on how to become a better student which would of supported them in education, and also the choice of providing student perspectives such interviews of students a level subjects. The response was relatively close, both options were important, and both should be included in the magazine as they follow a typical school magazine convention (which is interviews and information), so I intend to provide both of these features in the magazine.
Question 9 is 'Would you want the magazine to contain aspects which would tell you about, How to become a better student, Providing interviews about students within the school (maybe giving people there perspectives about A levels subject, or Both'
This question was a specialized feature question supporting me on what should be contained in the features. The majority of participants wanted the magazine to be informing on education, even though the magazine will be informal this supported the magazine to stay in touch with the parents as they will be able to follow up
into their child’s education.
Question 8 is 'Within the magazine what would you like the magazine to be informing on Reviews on the school,Your lifestyle or Education?'
This question allowed me to decide what type of language the pupils wanted, from the results we can see a significant amount of people wanting the magazine to be of informal language compared to formal, as all the participants were students it was more likely that this would happen. The magazine will be informal, whilst containing some formal language which will benefit parents.
Question 7 is 'Would you like the magazine to be in formal or informal language'
This question enabled me to decide when to publish the magazine, this effected how much time and effort I should spend on the magazine, as if it were to be published every week I would have needed to provide so much information and pictures within a short period of time compared to if it was a month which would have been relatively easy. From the results we could see that most people wanted the magazine to be published every month, giving me more time to provide a magazine which contained everything they wanted, which would have been easy for me.
question 6 is 'How often would you want the school magazine to be issued?'
From this question it supported me within my decision on what colour theme the magazine should be, from the results we see that the participants wanted black and red (the school theme), this made me certain that the colour theme will be red and black and this provided my magazine with more traditional as the students, teachers and parents can now relate to the magazine due to its theme.
Question 5 includes 'What kind of colour theme would you want to see in a school magazine?'
Once I found out what types of feature the participants wanted it made it difficult for me to understand what features was more important to them and useful to them, as the results in question 3 was vary close. However in this question I was able to get a better insight into what the participants wanted as this question aimed to get a better understanding into the feature they believed was the most important, the most important feature was ‘Pupils achievements’, this made it certain that the magazine would evolve around the theme of achievements mostly containing aspects of students achievements, whilst also containing some aspects about the schools achievements as this came second.
Question 4 is 'Out of these features within question 3 or the once you stated, which do you think is the most important'
This question allows me to understand what the participants wanted within the magazine, and as the magazine was targeted to students it gave them a variety of choices to choose from, there had been similar results for ‘Pupils, ‘Informing pupils and students about the school, what’s happening in the school and events that will be taking place’ and ‘Or all of these feature in the magazine’ , this showed me pupils wanted features which celebrated the achievements of the school and also containing features which gave them an insight into events which will be occurring within the school. Also as ‘Pupils achievements’ had been a popular feature, it made me certain than I will put features which will give students the chance to view their achievements within the magazine, and also at the same time providing more helpful information such as events which will take place in the school.
Question 3 is'If there were to be a school magazine what kind of features would you want to see in a school magazine'
This in fact was the most crucial question into my understanding of the school magazine, it enabled me to make the decision on whether there should or should not be a school magazine. The results showed me that more people wanted their to be a magazine, this allowed the questionnaire to carry on as the next few questions were about what features they wanted to see in the magazine, and the ones who ticked yes were clearly going to be the ones who had taken the questionnaire seriously which provided reliable data, whilst the ones who ticked no were most likely to tick any questions they pleased without any thought which would of effected my results. However due to more people wanting their to be a school magazine it gave me a more reliable response and a better insight into what they wanted as the following questions were based on the answer they gave to this question.
Question 2 is 'Would you like there to be a school magazine?'
Within this question we see that there had been more people who read magazines within every month, compared to every week. Even though the results are very close, it gave me a good insight into when people read magazines, it makes me want to publish the magazine over a long period of time instead of a week, as this is the time length when most students read magazines. Even when were talking about magazines in general there usually published every month, due to the fact that the consumers usually want to get a hand on a magazine every month. The producers of the magazine are also able to have more time, and also are able to provide more information, this is because more happens within a month compared to a week.
Question 1 is 'How often do you read magazines?'
Results
Whilst looking into the features contained in a school magazine I need to know what our readership would want within the magazine. In order to find out I need to provide the readers a questionnaire which will allow me to create a magazine suited for sixth form students at Hampstead School.
Within the questionnaire I provided various question, this enabled the participants to provide detailed and honest answers due to the various options they were able to choose from. There had been 22 participants, in many ways this provided me with some much insight into what sixth students within Hampstead wanted. I tried to choose from a mixture of students within our sixth form, ranging from different ages and sexes. This meant that the magazine which I intended to produce will speak on behalf of sixth form students.
The ideas I gained from my research makes me want to create a sixth form magazine. My magazine intends to celebrate the schools achievements, it also intends to be very informative towards our students, this would be done through the articles about future choices, I think that the more informative and supportive the magazine is towards the students the more the magazine would appeal to them, and the knowledge they gain from the magazine (such as the info about UCAS and future) will then support them making the right choices I their life. At the same time I want the magazine to appeal to the parents of the sixth form students, this is because I wanted parents to be apart of the sixth form community, furthermore as the magazine would be based around the future I want parents to be part of the decisions made my there child, and also be supportive of their decisions, as the magazine would contain articles and info about subject perspective, UCAS and jobs both the parents and student would gain so much knowledge and understanding about UNI and the future, thus making sure the students makes the right decision.
From my research it certainly influenced many of my ideas, and also made me stay in touch with the typical school magazine conventions, therefore making my magazine look realistic.
Whilst looking into the format, style and conventions of existing magazine I’m now ready to look into what’s inside school magazines. The magazines such as ‘High Profile’, provide its readership articles/information about many things such sports, trips, league tables, similarly FFH provide similar features, such as sports news and a ski trip to the US. From this it’s gave me understanding of what typical features are constantly used in school magazines. It showed me how all magazine aim to promote, celebrate or even inform the readership about a certain aspects within the school, such as their ranking on the league table or their achievement within a sports competition.
