Students Speak Toolkit > II. The Focus Group Blueprint > A. Design > 6. Make decisions about focus group structure.

Make decisions about focus group structure.

Some of the most important decisions the work team must make in this early stage of the process relate to the focus group structure. In order to carry out the work, your team will need to work through answers to the following questions:

How do you set up the focus groups, and who should be in them?

Identify the population.

Focus groups are a means of discovering answers to questions that matter to you. Who knows the answers to your research questions, or who can generate answers through conversations with others? The people with the answers form the population from which you will draw a sample to make up each focus group you conduct.

Your work team needs to know whose views ultimately matter most in relation to your research questions. (Again, we assume you have already decided which schools or school levels - elementary, middle, or high school - to include in the focus group research.) Here are some examples of the potential focus group population for specific research topics:

You plan to focus your research on discovering ways to help middle school students make a successful transition to high school. Focus group population: 8th grade students in several middle schools and 9th grade students in several high schools.
You want to find out what would increase school spirit at your middle school. Focus group population: All types of middle school students.
Your work team would like to find out what would increase students' sense of safety on the school bus. Focus group population: Students who currently ride the bus and students who stopped riding the bus within the last six months.
You need to find out how to develop tutoring programs that will best meet the needs of low-performing students. Focus group population: Low-performing students, as well as those who have recently improved their academic performance level.

Decide how many groups to run.

Conducting between three and ten focus groups is ideal. Conducting at least three groups will give you more confidence in your results, particularly when addressing complex issues. On the other hand, conducting more than ten groups will make it difficult to analyze the amount of material generated.

If you are conducting an effort in an entire district...

The work team must decide how many groups to conduct in each school included in the study. Depending on the number of schools in your district, you may want to consider conducting two to four groups per school. If you decide to run multiple focus groups in every school in the district, you may of course have more than ten sessions. (In 1998 Jessamine County conducted 13 focus groups: one in each of five elementary schools; two groups in each of two middle schools; and two groups in each of two high schools.)

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Determine the size and extent of homogeneity of the groups.

For student focus groups, we suggest you aim for six to eight participants in each group. This size helps to account for students who may be more reserved or less willing to speak in front of their peers. It also helps ensure that you get enough different views and responses to make the results credible.

To construct the groups, your work team has to make two big decisions:

How can you balance the goal of creating representative groups with the practical goal of making the project workable?
Should the groups be heterogeneous or homogeneous in nature?

In Jessamine County, the work team decided to create middle and high school focus groups that were homogenous by gender and mixed on other characteristics such as grade, academic performance, and race. All participating Fayette County schools also conducted groups that were homogenous by gender. In addition, the Fayette County schools created groups that were homogenous according to grade level – 6th grade females or 10th and 11th grade males, for example. Participants in these groups varied according to race/ethnic background and academic performance.

Primary Recommendation
We strongly, strongly recommend that you form student focus groups that are homogeneous by gender, especially at the middle school and high school level. At this age, students are particularly concerned about "impression management" and tend to be less forthcoming or natural in their responses when members of the opposite sex are in the room. Although this approach requires particular attention in the sampling process, the results yield dividends that are significantly harder to achieve in mixed-gender groups. You may also want to separate the groups according to other factors - for example, grade level, academic performance, or race/ethnic background - depending upon your research topic. Such separation makes analysis easier in many cases.

We are not quite so emphatic about separating the elementary school students by gender, partly because we have less experience in this arena. In Jessamine County, the elementary school focus groups contained both male and female 4th and 5th graders. In a few groups, male students were more vocal than their female counterparts, while in other groups, participation was well-balanced among males and females. Your work team may want to experiment with the homogeneity vs. heterogeneity approach in elementary school focus groups and decide which works best and creates the most comfortable climate for students in that age group.

Consider the pros and cons of homogeneous and heterogeneous groups.

Homogeneous groups have these characteristics:

They are groups in which all participants are the same gender, race, or age, or are similar in some other obvious way. In a homogeneous group, participants may be the same on several factors, for example, all participants may be African American/black 8th grade males.
They make it easier to create a comfortable climate for conversation, because students perceive that they are surrounded by others much like themselves.
They help in some ways with analysis, because it is easier to understand the opinions of whole groups (8th grade females, for example) rather than attempt to pick out individuals' opinions from within mixed groups.
They make it easier to see whether one type of participant (middle school males, for example) expresses opinions that match or differ from those of another type of participant (middle school females, or high school males, for example). As another example, if participants are grouped by gender it may be easier to determine whether female students differ from male students in their responses to particular school disciplinary policies.
They may require more work in the sampling and recruitment process.

Homogenous groups:
Groups in which all participants are the same gender, race, or age, or are similar in some other obvious way. This makes it easier to create a comfortable climate for conversation, because students perceive that they are surrounded by others much like themselves.

Heterogeneous groups have these characteristics:

They are groups in which participants are mixed according to factors such as gender, race, or age.
They are appropriate in situations where it is important to see how people who are somewhat different from each other interact and influence each other on an issue. For example, if you want to know how male and female students talk with each other about a particular disciplinary policy and its implementation, put them together in heterogeneous groups.
They make analysis more complicated. The complexity increases because it becomes more difficult to pick out the views of a subgroup and tie those views back to a particular characteristic. For example, in a research project involving five different heterogeneous groups of middle school students, mixed according to age, gender, race, and grade performance, it would be quite challenging to determine whether 'C' students' views differed from 'A' students' views, or whether female 'A' students' views differed from male 'A' students' views. None of these subgroups may matter at all to your analysis, but the point remains: Heterogeneous groups, while easier to set up, can be harder to analyze because they make it harder to identify and keep track of the views of important subgroups.

Note: Impression management can also occur among students of the same gender when groups contain students from different social groups, for example, students who are perceived as popular and students who are considered not-so-popular. In one of the female groups at a Fayette County middle school, "popular" girls tended to dominate the conversation, while the "not-so-popular" girls sat together and contributed less.

Impression management is a concern with any group, regardless of whether the group is homogeneous or heterogeneous. Through good planning, your work team can minimize impression management as much as possible in terms of the factors that matter most in your school or to your research topic. In our facilitator training materials we offer some suggestions for dealing with impression management.

When, where, and at what time should you conduct the groups?

The simplest way to conduct student focus groups is to hold the groups during the school day, and on the school premises. Find a classroom, lounge, or other appropriate space that will be available for at least two hours during the day and that will be empty, relatively quiet, and not subject to interruptions. Ideally the room should have a rectangular or circular table around which you can fit eight to ten chairs or enough space to arrange eight to ten desks (one for each participant plus one for each facilitator) in a circle. The room should be well-lit and appropriately warm or cool (depending on the season); it should also be possible to set up some type of recording device in the middle of the group (we'll talk more about this later). If you have a sufficient number of facilitators and recording devices, you can run more than one group at a time, in separate rooms.

Finding A Room

What makes a room in a school a good place for focus groups?

It's available for two hours.
It's relatively quiet.
It's free from interruptions.
It's reasonably private.
It has tables that make a solid square or circle seating up to ten people.
It has accessible electrical outlets for recorders.
It has adjustable climate controls.
It has doors that close.

If your work team decides to conduct student focus groups during school hours, you will need to make sure that students can be excused from class or other activities at the appropriate times, and you will need to notify teachers that students will be missing some classes. Once you have secured the necessary permission within the school for specific students to participate, make an announcement at a faculty or departmental meeting or put a note in teachers' boxes excusing students and explaining the reason. Gaining the early support of teachers will not only help your groups run smoothly, but may also facilitate later efforts to institute changes based on the results of the student conversations.

Ideally you should protect the identities of students who are participating so they can feel more relaxed about sharing their views. For this reason it is best not to make an announcement over the school intercom that would compromise confidentiality.

It seems to work well to hold groups either mid to late morning or after lunch. Avoid conducting groups first thing Monday morning, cautions a Fayette County middle school teacher, since it's generally hard to handle all the logistics at that time. In addition, if you are using the same student facilitators (or pairs of facilitators) in each group, you may want to vary the times that the groups take place so students won't miss the same class several times in one week.

For younger students, you may consider sitting in a circle on the floor or some other less formal arrangement as a way to increase comfort and promote relaxed conversation.

If it is not possible to conduct the student focus groups during the day, your work team may decide to ask students to take part in after-school or evening groups. Sessions that take place on Monday through Thursday evenings will most likely attract the highest number of participants. The typical evening starting time is 7:00 p.m. Keep in mind, of course, that if you schedule focus groups outside of school hours, you will face additional issues such as transportation and scheduling conflicts.

If you cannot conduct the groups on the school premises (or if you just prefer not to), you need to consider such issues as transportation, parking, safety, and liability. Ease of parking and perceived safety of both parking and the meeting location may affect your ability to recruit participants. Familiar locations are also helpful, but may not be possible. If you ask people to come to an unfamiliar place, let them know what part of town it is in and what landmarks are nearby, and send them a map in the mail. Make sure it is handicapped-accessible, through and through (including the restrooms).

Will you offer an incentive?

An incentive is some kind of bonus, benefit, or reward for participating in a focus group. In public (non-school) situations, most focus group researchers offer money as an incentive. If you plan to conduct the focus groups during the school day, refreshments and the appeal of missing class are probably enough of an incentive for students.

An incentive may be more necessary if you plan to hold the focus groups after school hours, since you are asking students to give up some of their free time to participate in a school-related activity. Appropriate incentives include a pizza party, T-shirts, discount coupons, movie passes, or anything else that may have value to your participants.

Next: Identify the types of students to recruit for each group.