Students Speak Toolkit > II. The Focus Group Blueprint > A. Design > 14. Make decisions about focus group recording and analysis.

Note:

Each speaker, when possible to distinguish individual voices from the audiotapes, has been assigned a number indicated at the left of the page. Indistinguishable speakers are indicated by an underline and a colon. { __: }
The facilitator is indicated by an { F: } at the left of the page.
These excerpts have been pulled from the middle of the focus group conversation.

Excerpt from Verbatim Transcript: Middle School Male Students

F:	What do you think the best type of relationship would be to have between teachers and students...at your schools?
__:	What's the best kind of relationship we have between them?
F:	What's the ideal relationship?
5:	Well, it kind of, kind of depends on whether...what kind of student you are. Like...if you're bad, then only they're like...they tell you to be quiet and shut up.
8:	(INAUDIBLE) they see the ideal, the ideal that you would think is the best kind of relationship.
5:	Well, I know. If you're a good student and stuff, they'll take time for you and you talk and tell jokes and stuff...
6:	Yeah, like I said.
5:	...but if you're a bad student, they'll tell you to shut up all day.
8:	I think you should have a pretty good one, like friends. You can choose after-school stuff extras. Most teachers who's teaching school, they could be doing stuff like educational field trips after school, they're paying with their own money or they're asking for your help. That's it.
12:	If they were nice and took time to...to work it out with me.
F:	What did you say?
12:	If the teachers were nice and then they'd take time to work...work the problems with them that you (INAUDIBLE).
F:	So is it more like you'd rather they be your friend, or...? How would you...
__:	Yeah.
F:	What?
__:	That's what I think. They should be your friend.
7:	Yeah. They shouldn't judge you over one incident. Like if you make one little mistake, they'll judge you for the whole year, and that's not right.

Excerpt from Verbatim Transcript: High School Female Students

[Note: The focus group was already well underway when this exchange took place.]

F:	Okay. Picture an ideal school with all these things that you're talking about. What would the overall attitude in that ideal high school be and how would the teachers be? What kind of teachers would be there?
2:	Teachers would be a lot happier.
__:	Yeah.
9:	The teachers would be happy, they wouldn't bring their personal problems to school...
11:	They'd be glad that they were actually teaching.
__:	Cartwheels down the hallway.
__:	They would be teaching.
__:	They would, they would be excited about teaching, they'd want to be there...
5:	So would students, knowing that they're helping us.
__:	Yeah.
__:	They wouldn't be there just for the paycheck.
9:	Everyone in the school would get along with everyone else. No more cliques, no more fights.
10:	When you've got 2,000 kids, not everybody's going to get along.
9:	Well, she said the "ideal school," hello.
__:	Yeah.
__:	I didn't say it was going to happen.
2:	Yeah, at the school we're all happy.
__:	We're all happy people.
6:	Mrs. (NAME DELETED) can say, "Have a happy day," and we'll all have a happy day.
2:	We're all just sitting in class, just like, I love this class, wow.
__:	But they're...
__:	In the ideal school, nobody would really mind getting up in the morning and going.
__:	True.