8/10/2019 Research and Questionnaire Evaluation

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Research Evaluation Sharnel Mehmi

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Research Evaluation

Analysis of research from Front Covers and Contents pages

From analysing both the front covers and contents pages of two school magazines I have learnt that it is seen as

normal for the front cover to be dominated by a single image, both images which were appropriate to the theme of

the magazine, the other conventions of the magazines were surrounding the image, all on either side of the

dominating image or underneath, these conventions consist of cover lines and plugs, linking to many articles in

which the magazine consists of. From seeing the wording and layout of the different conventions on the two front

covers and contents pages of the magazines I have researched, I know how I must create my magazine and what I

must avoid when doing so, such as including an irregular colour scheme and not having a background on either the

front or contents page. From the Secondary teachers front cover I have learnt to not allow the masthead and the

main image to intersect one another as it gives a look that the magazine is ill presented and that not enough thought

has been put in to create it. As well as a large mid-shot image of a student, I may also include another image on the

front cover of my school magazine in order to catch the attention of the targeted audience even more as it will stand

out even more due to the use of multiple images.

However, on contents pages, I have learnt that there are not many different conventions presented as the main

purpose of the contents is not to attract the audience to read the magazine but in order to inform them of thecontents of the magazine, from this, I had learnt that the images that I use on the contents page must link into what

is said that is included in the magazine.

Overall, I have felt that analysing and researching the from covers and contents pages of school magazines has

helped in order to in-depth my knowledge of the conventions of a school magazines front and contents page and has

helped to inspire me for the creation of my own.

Analysis of my 10 question questionnaire answers

As a purpose to further my research from analysing front covers and contents pages, I had created a 10 question

questionnaire to distribute to 11 people in order to investigate what appeals to them within a school magazine. Afterreceiving the feedback from these questionnaires I had then analysed the results produced. From asking this

question, I had discovered from the 11 people that the questionnaire had been distributed to, majority of the

participants are male and that only 6 individuals actively read magazines. Within my third question, If yes, how

often do you read magazines?2 participants only read magazines daily, weekly and fortnightly and that majority (5)

of the respondents read magazines monthly. This suggests that these pupils prefer to read magazines once a month

due to the fact there will be more information contained in the magazine rather than the other magazines which

may only show small uninteresting stories of events that may have occurred in the previous week. Due to magazines

being made only monthly the cost of production will be immensely less as no paper and ink will be unnecessarily

wasted.

My fourth question in the survey, I had asked What would you like to see in a school magazine? I had asked this in

order to see what pupils are interested in reading as this will aid me to choose what topics to include in my

magazine. From this question I had discovered that pupils would rather be interested in magazines if it contains

advice for exams, such as writing tips or how to handle stress during this time period. Four pupils however had

selected the other, after school clubs, tips and subject revision, indicating that they would prefer to have a wide

diversity in their magazine that theyll choose to read, due to many selecting other other interesting topics may be

included in the magazine such as horoscopes in order to entertain pupils and take their mind off of school. Including

horoscopes along with the advice of school will boost the popula rity of the magazine due to the fact that itll target a

wide range of the audience, from children interested in seeing if any after school clubs are available for them to

attend to entertainment.From asking my fifth question Would you prefer more images, text or a balance of both? I was able to see that

pupils would be more interested in magazines if the contents were a balance between the images and texts.

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Research Evaluation Sharnel Mehmi

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However almost as many pupils has picked that they would prefer if magazines had more images and none had said

that they would prefer more text, indicating that images interests them more. In the creation of my magazine, I will

try to make a general balance between the both in order to try and appeal to the audience but I will try to use more

images as these images are more appealing and speak louder than words.

What type of images would you like to see? I had asked this to see how close they would prefer an image to be in

the magazine such as being extremely close to the main object or person or being extremely far. The majority of the

pupils had answered that they would prefer to see mid-shots within magazines, which are images from the waistupwards of a person and a better detail given of their expressions.

From asking the target audience What size would you prefer images to be? The size that had the most number of

pupils picking it was medium as here the pictures wont be too small so theyre barely noticeable and they wont be

too big where the image will fill out the whole page so the text is unreadable. By using medium sized images, it will

be easier for the pupils to balance their mind on both the images and texts rather than one diminishing the other.

From asking What attracts you to a school magazine? to the pupils, this will allow meto know what to include in

my magazine to attract the target audience, to my surprise the pupils had mainly picked that the colour scheme

attracts them to the magazine and for my ninth question What characteristics do you best think defines a school

and should be included in magazines? the answers provided were league tables, Ofsted, a combination of both and

other. Both league tables and a combination of both were picked the most, indicating that the pupils would like to

know of their schools performance in exams rather than their grades given by Ofsted.

For my final question I had asked Would you like a school magazine to cover various schools or one school in

particular? the response that I had was what I had expected as eight pupils had said that they would rather have

the magazine focus on one school in particular, as they would be uninterested and confused if the magazine would

consist of unnecessary information of other schools.