<< previous section | table of contents | next section >>

5 Planning for the Focus Group Sessions

Once your focus group instruments are written and the protocol drafted, you can begin the final planning stage: preparing for the sessions themselves. This chapter will discuss how and when to schedule focus groups and how to choose sites.

How should you schedule the focus groups?

Before you start recruiting and screening parents, you need to have some idea of how many focus groups you will conduct in a given community and when you might conduct them. In scheduling the sessions, first consider which focus groups can be conducted together geographically—perhaps two to three in the same region, city, or neighborhood. Depending on how well recruitment goes and the amount of time you have to complete your project, you may be able to schedule clusters of focus groups two weeks apart. That will allow time for screening, adjustment of recruitment strategies, site selection, and logistical details. The logistical coordinator also will be able to spend enough time talking to the community group staff to engage them and provide closer oversight and support. (See Field Note.)

Field Note

The optimum in scheduling is not always possible. In our special needs project, recruitment was so slow for our first few sessions that we had to begin recruiting in several communities at once or we would have fallen seriously behind schedule. If you have the staff available, it may make sense to have more than one logistical coordinator so that the communities can be split up among several staff members.

Some suggestions concerning scheduling:

Get the advice of community groups. Your partners in the community will be an important source of information about the work patterns of the local populations you are targeting. They can suggest optimum times for holding the sessions. They also might know if there is a competing local event that could reduce attendance.

Avoid days of the week when families are more likely to have other plans. We were advised that there would be a higher likelihood of no shows at the end of the work week. Some advised against weekend sessions as well. Again, your community groups will be the best source of advice on this question.

Do not assume traditional work schedules. Daytime or afternoon groups may work better for some parents.

Set reasonable hours. Plan start times for evening groups to accommodate travel time and to enable the sessions to end at a reasonable hour, particularly if you are holding the session on a school night.

Keep sessions within the time allotted. If the session itself will take about an hour and a half, leave another half hour at the beginning so parents will have time to fill out the registration and consent forms, settle their children, and have refreshments. Be sure not to exceed the agreed-upon time limit.

How do you choose the sites?

The location of your focus group plays an important role in the comfort of your participants as well as the ease of recording, and providing refreshments, child care and transportation. Do your best to choose sites that fit the bill, but expect to deal with the unexpected and be ready to be flexible! The following guidelines may help:

A comfortable, easy-to-reach setting. The best location would be one near public transportation and familiar to participants. A community center, church, child care center, hospital, or neighborhood health clinic might qualify.

A neutral setting. Choose a neutral environment. Avoid locations that might make participants uneasy or have a chilling effect on the conversation, such as a state agency or a work site.

Room accommodations. Make sure there are tables for registration materials and for the discussion itself and outlets for the tape recorder. The note taker and observer should have room to sit away from the group but close enough to allow the microphone to pick up the voices of all the participants. The table for the focus group participants should be large enough to seat everyone facing each other with the facilitator at one end.

Child care arrangements. Choose a site that has a separate area for child care, preferably with toys and room for activities, that is safe for children of all ages.

No competing activities. Ask if other activities will be going on at the time of the focus group session. Otherwise you may be surprised to discover on arrival that a teen activity program is going on in an adjoining room. The noise could distract participants and drown out their voices on the tape recorder.

<< previous section | table of contents | next section >>