Outside-Inside Marketing - maximizing community involvement

School Administrator, August, 2001 by Susan Rovezzi Carroll, David Carroll

Focus Groups

The focus group is an excellent vehicle to bring the opinion of the community into the school. The purpose of a focus group is to direct discussion on specific topics to gain a sense of public perception. The issues again are determined by strategic planning, a priori. Although focus groups have been used for many years in the private sector, only recently have they been employed in public education.

While the survey is largely a quantitative method, the focus group is qualitative. It relies on words versus numbers to generate information. And unlike the survey, which may require professional expertise, many schools have internal leaders who can moderate a focus group.

Usually, focus groups consist of 12 to 15 participants who have similar backgrounds. More than one focus group is recommended to corroborate the results. Since focus groups are based upon the opinions of a few people, the results are not generalizable to the large population. The results are considered to be "soft data," making them more vulnerable to public scrutiny.

Many information needs can be addressed by schools from using focus groups. If a subject is complex, controversial, largely unknown or misunderstood, a focus group is ideal for getting a pulse on what the community thinks.

One school system conducted a focus group involving employers in a largely industrial, middle-class community. The labor supply and demand for jobs was the singular focus of the research. The school system was confident that it was doing a good job; most students were able to find employment after graduation, There seemed to be no gap in supply and demand.

The questions used to stimulate discussion embodied three simple themes:

* What strengths do our graduates have?

* What are their shortcomings?

* What could we change or improve to make our graduates more marketable?

There were four focus groups, segmented by employers from the areas of health care, manufacturing, retail and nonprofits. The school was correct about supply and demand; there was a match. However, a surprising common complaint among the four job sectors was that graduates were coming to interviews unprepared. Their attire, demeanor, verbal skills, job application skills and overall presentation skills were sorely in need of improvement.

As a result of this discovery, the school district conducted a series of workshops to teach skills for successful job interviews. These programs were offered to all graduates, both college bound and those going straight to work.

In-Depth Interviews

Bringing the voice of the community into the school is executed intimately through in-depth interviews. This market research technique requires independent interviews of 10 to 15 individuals with the type of questions a focus group uses--a small number that are focused and broad. In fact, the in-depth interview is much like the focus group, but it has a few advantages. First, it provides more discrete data points. While a focus group yields one data point per group, 10 to 15 interviews are 10 to 15 data points, independent of each other.