Read this advice on how to read your audience and respond to their feedback during your presentation.
Use direct observation of small audiences and use interviews, surveys and Likert rating scales to collect data about larger audiences.
So how do you go about collecting information about your particular audience? There are several useful methods to consider, including: (1) direct observation of members of the potential audience, and (2) data collection through interviews surveys and rating scales for opinions.
Direct observation allows you to get to know the members of your audience personally. You are making observations of audience members through your own senses such as hearing, sight and perhaps smell. You can employ this method in a classroom or small group situation through conversations with others and by listening to what they say.
However, you will want to guard against introducing your own egocentric biases into the observation. Our human senses do not function like a video camcorder, impartially recording all observations. Thus two people can view the same audience and come away with entirely different perceptions of it, even disagreeing about simple facts. This is why eyewitness testimony is notoriously unreliable.
Interview: Lars G Nilsson interviews Thed Björk for Viasat Motor at Anderstorp Raceway in 2012.
An interview is a conversation between two people -- the interviewer and the interviewee -- that involves asking questions to obtain information. Generally, you will be using the four different types of questions which follow:
Avoid leading questions. A leading question is one that virtually guarantees that the interviewee will reply with a desired answer. For example, "Wouldn't you prefer X? " indicates what you want the interviewee to prefer. You do not find out what the interviewee really thinks.
For large audiences you could use computer-assisted web interviewing (CAWI).
The basic questionnaire is a survey consisting of a series of questions and other prompts for the purpose of gathering information from respondents. Questionnaires have advantages over other types of surveys in that they are cheap, do not require as much effort from the questioner as verbal or telephone surveys, and often have standardized answers that make it simple to compile data. For example, you might have a question with easy scorable multiple choice answers such as:
What is your marital status?
Likert Scale: An example of a Likert Scale using five Likert items pertaining to Wikipedia.
Do you want to find out if members of the audience share the same attitudes or agree or disagree with your thesis? You can use a Likert-type rating scale of attitudes. A Likert item is simply a statement which the respondent is asked to evaluate according to any kind of subjective or objective criteria; generally the level of agreement or disagreement is measured. Often five ordered response levels are used. Look at the Likert Scale in the example, to see the format of the typical five-level Likert item which is:
Questionnaire: Visitors at the youth fair "YOU" complete a questionnaire on Wikipedia.
Finally, when interviewing remember to allow the interviewee time to respond to your question without interrupting. Also, leave a few brief pauses between one question and the next so the interviewee can supply additional information. Or, probe before moving on to the next question. Usually you want to prepare a list of questions in advance and move from more general to specific questions.
When using a questionnaire or using rating scales it is wise to try them out on a small sample of your audience before you administer them to a large group. You can use the small sample to make sure that everyone understands the meaning of the questions and that you are getting useful information. You can collect the data directly or you can use computer-assisted web based surveys or interviewing questionnaires.
Source: Lumen Learning, https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-communications/chapter/adapting-to-your-audience/
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