Students Speak Toolkit > II. The Focus Group Blueprint > A. Design

Students Speak Toolkit > II. The Focus Group Blueprint > A. Design > 2. Form a work team.

Form a work team.

The key to your focus group success is to form a carefully constructed group of dedicated individuals from the school community. These individuals will make all the crucial decisions and carry out the necessary steps and actions for your research effort. The work team will also provide the critical local knowledge and custom tailoring necessary to adapt the information presented in this Toolkit to your own school community. For the work team, you need people with an understanding of "how things work around here" who can devote the required care, consideration, and time to make the focus group research credible, workable, and useful.

Here are a few certainties about the composition of the work team: It needs to include a mix of educators and students. If you are considering focus groups with parents as well, it is essential to include some parents on the work team. The work team needs to include the following kinds of members:

one or more respected educators who represent the variety of positions or views on the topic
at least one educator who really knows how the system works logistically (how schedules work, how the permission process works, how transportation works)
educators who respect students
an educator, parent, or community member who has strong analysis and writing skills
a parent, educator, or student who is good at taking short meeting notes; that person will need a little bit of back up and support from some office personnel

The Work Team Composition

Your work team should include members of the school community who represent different interests, and may include:

• students
• teachers (especially resource teachers)
• counselors
• principals
• other administrators
• parents
• members of school councils
• central office staff
• interested business leaders or community members

Think in terms of diversity and availability when selecting the student members of your work team. Make an effort to include students who have these kinds of qualities:

students who represent a mix of social groups and types
students who might not be the most high-performing, acknowledged leaders of the school
students who have leadership potential but are not out front all the time
students who have average grades but great listening skills or particular gifts of relating across boundaries

With parents, again it is important to think in terms of "sides" or alternative views on the issue. If there are multiple views, each view needs to be represented by a strong, respected parent who will communicate accurately and fairly with other parents.

You're looking for 15 people or less, ideally. Tall order, isn't it? Nothing else makes as much difference as the composition of the work team, though; that's for sure.

The work team is responsible for all three stages of the research effort, as outlined in the "Focus Group Blueprint". There is some flexibility in individual members' roles, however. In the first stage – designing and planning the focus groups – the entire work team should meet at least three times, for two to three hours each. Depending on your time frame, these meetings can take place once a week or once every two weeks.

"We gave our student researchers a lot of autonomy. They owned this effort from the very beginning."

High School Educator,
Fayette County

After the design stage of the research has been completed, the work team can either split into two subcommittees – a logistics team and an analysis/reporting team – or it can continue to carry out the research as a whole group. Those members who participate in the logistics process should expect to commit at least 12 hours to leading a facilitator training session, drawing a random sample, recruiting focus group participants, and making sure the focus groups actually happen (the right students, facilitators, and equipment get to the right room at the right time). Members who participate in the analysis and reporting process should expect to commit 15-20 hours to reading transcripts or listening to tapes from the focus group sessions, analyzing the results, and preparing a report on the findings.

What Makes a Good Question? Students Are the Experts

We underscore the valuable contributions that students can make to this early stage of the focus group process. Students know better than anyone else how their peers may respond to the focus group questions and can provide significant information as to what may or may not work. In Jessamine County, the high school students who participated on the work team offered a great deal of insight into all levels of focus group decisions. Their insights were particularly useful in framing the language of the interview questions and the structure of the focus groups. Involving students in planning means that you will need to accommodate their schedules. You will probably need to help transport them to and from the meetings as well, and you may need parental permission for some parts of the work. Trust us – it's worth the effort.

If you are conducting an effort in a cluster of schools or in an entire district...

Primary Recommendation
Form one combined team composed of representatives from each participating school to work on the design stage and the analysis/reporting stage. A workable size for the district-wide work team is somewhere between 10-12 members, with a maximum of 15 members. You may have to modify this, depending on the number of schools in your district.

Since members of the work team will be responsible for reporting back to their schools on the progress of the research effort, it is absolutely critical for each participating school to have at least one representative on the work team. In Jessamine County, Superintendent Linda France served as the chair of the work team and asked each principal to recommend a school representative for the team.

Create separate logistics teams in each participating school.

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How One School District Adapted These Guidelines

In Jessamine County, elementary school counselors coordinated and facilitated the elementary school groups. One elementary school counselor attended all of the work team meetings and then shared information from the meetings with the four other elementary school counselors. This counselor also convened a meeting during which all counselors discussed their role as facilitators, cleared up any questions they had about the recruitment process or logistics, and worked together to modify the focus group questions for their young participants. Because one work team member took responsibility for involving her colleagues in the other elementary schools, the elementary school focus groups were a big success.

You can use this categorical representation approach with principals, resource teachers, or other administrators who may not have the time to attend all the work team meetings but who still need to be informed about the process. If you need to use this approach because it is impossible to have a key person from each school as a work team member, take special care in choosing work team members who are willing and able to take responsibility outside of team meetings to inform others and ensure their cooperation.

When recruiting potential work team members...

Balance information about expectations with positive, optimistic promotion of the ways the research will benefit them and the school or whole school system.
Send out a letter inviting participants to join the work team and make personal phone calls.

We can't overstate this: The success of your focus group research depends on the strength, capabilities, persistence, and savvy of the work team. If you choose the work team members well, it is far more likely that the rest of the work will go smoothly, and that bumps in the road will be handled swiftly and appropriately.

Next: Designate a project manager.