EARLY COLLEGE DESIGNS DATA USE TOOLKIT

SAMPLE FOCUS GROUP PROTOCOL WITH SCRIPT

Purpose To understand students’ Early College experiences in terms of courses taken, other

educational experiences, guidance and support received, and overall perceptions of their schools and colleges.

To explore students’ expectations about their futures, especially regarding further education, employment, and how their schools have prepared them for next steps.

Setting Up the Focus Group Contact data point person at your school. Ask him or her to identify five to seven students in

the current graduating class (grades 12 or 13) and to try for students 18 years or older. Try to include diversity on gender, race/ethnicity, place of origin, performance.

Provide the following information to school point person:o Designate five to seven students.o Focus group should last 1+ hours.o Students will receive a small gift for participation (gift certificate, five dollar bill or free

food. Decide on a date and time for the focus group. Provide a permission form for students to sign and return.

Things for the Facilitator to Bring to Focus Group Tape recorder, batteries, and blank tape Permission forms (parent must sign beforehand if student is under age 18) Gift certificates for student participants or money to pay for food Focus Group protocol

Conducting the Focus Group1. Introduce yourself as students arrive and let them know you’ll get started and talk about the purpose of the focus group once everyone’s arrived.

My name is ___________ and I’m a facilitator with ___________. Your school is one of the many schools involved with the Early College Initiative. We are doing student focus groups at many Early College schools this semester.

A focus group typically involves getting a group of people together and asking them about their attitudes towards something. Questions are asked in an interactive group setting where participants are free to talk with other group members.

EARLY COLLEGE DESIGNS DATA USE TOOLKIT

In this case, many of you are graduating and have had both high school and some college experience. The purpose of this focus group is to better understand your high school/college experiences and your plans for the future. Please feel free to chime in at any time with your thoughts and opinions.

If that’s okay, we typically tape record focus group interviews just because I can’t write down everything. But if at any time you want me to stop recording, just let me know. These interview tapes will not be shared with anyone at your school. We will produce a report that may use quotes from this focus group but will not identify any one in particular. And the permission slips outline this confidentiality (collect permission slips).

2. Start recording; ask each student to go around and say: a) their first name, b) when they expect to graduate from high school; and c) if they’re also getting an Associate’s degree.

Sample Focus Group Questions

1. Describe your experience as an Early College student. For example, what did you and other students like about the experience/what worked for you? (Probe: noteworthy educational experiences in high school and college)

2. When you think about what it was like to be both a high school and college student, what was easy and what was difficult about it?(Probe: types of courses, instruction, teachers)

3. What was your experience like in Seminar (or other similar activity)? What impact, if any, did it have on your experience as a student? Did you have any experiences with other academic and social supports (high school and college)?

4. What are your plans after you complete the Early College program? What are your long-term aspirations? (Probe: Continue courses at the college? Go on to a four-year college? Career/work?)

5. How have you gone about making decisions about next steps (college, work)? Who (at school and elsewhere) has helped with your decision-making process and how have they helped?

6. If you had some say in making the Early College student experience better, what would you change if you were in charge of running the school?