Activity 7

Activity 7

Retirement Transition in Ballet Dancers: ‘Coping within and coping without’

Irina Roncaglia

(critique is in bold italics)

Appendix: Interview Schedule

Questions and sub-questions during interview schedule:

1. Can you start by telling me about yourself (e.g. your age, when did you start dancing, when did you stop)? Asking their age could be a potentially sensitive subject area, especially when dealing with people who are retiring from their job and may feel sensitive about it. If one is researching how people cope with retirement, does it matter how old they are if the researcher already knows they are retiring and are eligible for their study?

2. How did you feel when your career was coming to an end?
· Was retirement planned? Was retirement sudden?
· Do you want to share the reasons for your retirement?

3. How did you come to the decision of retiring?
· Was it a lengthy process?

4. Was/is the experience important for you?
· Do you want to share your feelings around the time of retirement?

5. Did/do you feel you have/had control of the situation? Control to what extent? Participants may have completely different ideas on what being ‘in control’ is so the interviewer would need to be aware of this. The interviewing process can be highly subjective and so the researcher would need to acknowledge this when analyzing their data.
· Did/do you feel that you had enough support around you?

6. If you explore the events since retirement, which area has been more important?
· Your friends? Your work? Your family? Yourself?
· What kind of support you received if any? (friends, family, outside agency)

7. How did/do you feel towards your family? This could be a sensitive subject area. Often the amount of support you receive from your family comes down to much more personal issues. Interviewer is assuming that they have close family.

8. How did they feel towards yourself? This could be a potentially uncomfortable question for the interviewee if their family felt negatively towards their retirement. They might not know how their family feels about it and might therefore feel embarrassed and/or alienated if they have to answer the question. The interviewer is making an assumption that the interviewee has some knowledge of what their family thinks of them.

9. How did/do you feel towards your colleagues that were still dancing? This is possibly another sensitive subject area. If they have negative feelings towards other dancers will they want to reveal them? The researcher might have to be aware of a slightly untruthful ‘sugar coated’ answer.
· How was the transition away from the Ballet Company?

10. How did you cope through the whole experience?


11. How did/do you cope with the transition?

Questions 10 and 11, the researcher would have to be aware that participants may have very different ideas of what coping is when analyzing their data

12. How do you feel about the future?
· Did/do you have a new purpose in life?
· How is the future looking for you?

13. How do you define yourself now that you have "retired"?
· Do you consider yourself still a dancer?
· Do you see yourself as an individual looking for a new identity?

14. Are there any other experiences that you might want to share or address?

15. Looking retrospectively has the experience been important in a positive or negative way?

This is a semi structured interview which includes specific but open ended questions in order that the interviewee has the opportunity to speak more freely. Considering that the researcher wants to find out about how individual dancers cope with retirement, the interview has well constructed questions that encourage the interviewees to give their in depth thoughts, insights and interpretations of the issue. I do feel, however, that the interview could be a bit long with 15 questions as most of them allow for the interviewee to speak freely and in depth, and so could last up to an hour and a half or more. An hour should be an appropriate length of time to gather the information that is needed and at the same time keep the interviewee’s interest. Because of the number of personal in depth questions, I think that this interview would be most suited to a smaller select group of individuals rather than a large group sample. I also think that the researcher would need plenty of time and a relaxed atmosphere to conduct the questions so it would be unsuitable for anyone short of time. I think that overall, other than what I have already critiqued, this interview has a good structure and does not contain any leading questions.

Reference for interview:
FQS Forum: Qualitative Social Research: Irina Roncaglia ‘Retirement transition in Ballet Dancers: Coping within and coping without’ Volume 2, No. 2, Article 1