Age? Gender? An Interesting Discussion

I have had focused group discussion to collect some data from my dearest colleagues.

However, this time I have divided the members to twogroupes by age. I chose one young group of dancers, average age of twenty years old and the other group which is assembled by older dancers average age of twenty eight years old.
I purposely divided by age, because I was interested in the difference in the out come. We all see things differently even when we are seeing same object, especially as we get older.

As I guessed, I have succeeded to collect some very interesting data by the end of the two sessions.

As once I have dropped the questions into the field of discussion, younger group tried to get to the conclusion straight away, almost there were no discussion. It sounded like no one was listening to each other. There were not much of process of discussion. However, atmosphere was light and all of them were very interested in the topics. They all wanted to express what they were thinking, all in a same time! Also, their answers and conclusions were mainly the instant, short term solution compare to older group.

Older group' atmosphere was totally different. especially the pause between the questions and the pause between each other's opinions were interesting, and also created very heavy atmosphere. In older group, I have noticed the clear difference of opinions by in gender. It seemed like men do not wish to teach anyone who is not interested in what they do, considering women came with lots of tactics to make students interested in what they do. It came across men did not even want to discuss about the questions. It seemed like some older people took the questions and their answers very personally. I must admit, it was a hard work to keep going on the session with the older one's to make them actively want to express what they think. The men in older group came across they did not want to discuss with their opinions and they seemed like they are not ready to listen to the other's opinions or let other's opinions effect their's. It was almost like a competition, but not active, quiet and heavy one.

I must admit, I was more interested in their attitude and the atmosphere they have created, rather than actual answers for my inquiry.

However, the main difference in between them were, older group's opinions and tactics were much more diverse than younger ones.  For example, older one's came up with using tools as a part of tactics. Also, older one's had a bigger point of view, i.e. to inspire young practitioners older one's came up with ideas of taking them to see live performance or put students in the performance to feel the real atmosphere of being professional. However, younger one;s mainly came up with changing the routine of the steps or changing the type of music, etc... ; short term solutions.

It was a interesting discussion, especially I had two different groups to compare to. Maybe next I will divide by gender, as male and female had clearly different approach to the topic.