Critical Reflection on Pilot Survey

As a starting point for collecting information on my chosen topic, i think doing a pilot survey was a great idea. It helped me to see how many people had taken a Street Dance exam, how many had taken any dance exam and how many had never taken an exam at all. Most importantly, the survey allowed me to see how many had thought an exam was beneficial to enhancing their dance careers and how many disagreed with this. I was able to get the personal opinions of those who completed the survey which was definitely a bonus.
 From the results, i was able to see that only 20% of those who had taken the survey, had taken a Street Dance exam compared to the other 80% who had taken an exam in another dance style. The 20% who had taken the street Dance exam explained that it was Freestyle, meaning it did not focus on any one area of the Street dance Technique.
Questions such as, "do you feel (taking an exam) has enhanced your development as a dancer," allowed each participant to give a qualitative answer, effectively allowing me to receive more in depth answers that could be analysed like those of an interview.
Using social networking sites such as Facebook and the Ba Professional Practice Discussion page, i was able to share my survey and generate a greater response. I think this tactic is a lot better than trying to approach dancers on the street as firstly you can never be sure who is and secondly this tactic would involve time, which many people do not have. This would also mean the dancers filling out the surveys would be from a much smaller demographic. By posting the survey to a social networking site, i was able to get answers from males, females, dancers of all ages and most importantly dancers from different backgrounds.
The most interesting finding from this survey was the fact that the majority of those who answered, were all in favor of exams for various different reasons. This was exactly what i wanted to find out. Are exams needed in order to enhance your development as a dancer?
The general census i got from this survey is YES exams are beneficial. So how does this this relate to Street Dance? I have seen that exams enhance so many different dance styles but what about Street Dance? Although as a dance style it may not be right for it to conform to formal exams, due to containing self-expression and creativity, I am starting to discover that there must be a way of giving Street dance students something to focus on, develop their technique and retain the fundamentals of their style, whilst still fueling their creative and choreographic skills.
In doing this questionnaire, i have have already gathered some much needed and very important information which just shows how effective a pilot survey can be. I still think that most of my in depth research will come from my pilot interviews but i will definitely use surveys as a basis for research in the future.