Student Focus Groups & Drawings

Working with students was somewhat different than holding focus groups with teachers and volunteers. We wanted to be sure students’ voices were represented in the data collection and analysis, so we designed five student sessions in five elementary schools for children in Grades 1-6. In four of the schools, we split the children into two groups, Grades 1-3 and Grades 4-6. The numbers were smaller in one school, so all children were together. This gave us nine student focus groups with a total of 63 students.

We used the shared language technique commonly used by elementary teachers. In this teaching technique, students gather in small groups with the teacher and together they discuss ideas and share information while the teacher records the details on large sheets of chart paper. Students were very familiar with this routine and the researchers were also experienced teachers. This technique proved very successful in creating a natural situation for data collection and for discussion of the Project L.O.V.E. program.

Five prompts were used to guide the student focus groups:

1. Let’s make a list of all the things you do when you are with your Project L.O.V.E volunteer.
2. What materials do you use with your volunteer?
3. How do you feel about going to work with your volunteer?
4. What do you feel about working with an older person?
5. What’s the best thing about working with a volunteer?

As the researcher prompted the children and got the ideas going, ideas were recorded and saved for later analysis. The technique worked well and the children told many stories about the activities they do and the feelings they had about being part of Project L.O.V.E.