Bonding at Moderating Skills Workshop

I'll confess I was skeptical – having moderated before, I wondered what the classroom could teach that would stack up against experience, and felt reluctant to sacrifice two days to listen to more generic tips and tricks.

Thankfully, I left feeling more inspired, confident, and excited to moderate than ever.

What impressed instantly was the quality of tuition and resources. The moderator’s handbook was concise and informative, helping reinforce learnings, while Ruth’s teaching style was interactive and emotionally engaging. She allowed the group to learn from each other’s experience as well as her own, a highlight being the chance to micro-analyse body language in a filmed depth.

We were encouraged to cooperate and share learnings, and with the group well-cemented, breaking into smaller factions to get under the skin of moderating felt comfortable; learning some great projective techniques and talking through our personal moderation fears was easy in such a supportive, friendly environment.

My biggest fear, though, came true the next morning — moderating while being watched through the two-way mirror — but I felt grateful to have the chance to tackle this in a stress-free setting.

I left with a long to-do list, but first there was one clear course of action for our newly-bonded crew: hit the pub!

Lucia Bartlam
Copyright © Association for Qualitative Research, 2015