Sample Teacher Focus Group Questions

This is a sample set of focus group questions designed for for use with teachers. Similar, yet different, questions would be developed for administrators, technology specialists, or other populations within a school. All of these different types of focus groups would be part of a comprehensive data collection effort, which in itself would be part of a comprehensive evaluation (audit) of how technology is used to support teaching and learning in a school or district.

Additional focus group and interview questions can be found here. We also have sample surveys and classroom observation protocols.

The basic principle behind focus groups is that they need to be focused. This means creating unique questions to probe particular understandings of particular role-alike groups. These questions should be tied to indicators that you have established to assess progress toward meeting your goals/objectives.

To provide further context for these sample questions, here are the basic, underlying, assumptions we make when creating and conducting focus groups...

• The group will meet for 90 minutes. Timeframes (i.e., starting and ending) will be strictly honored.
• The group will contain no more than 12 and no fewer than 8 members.
• Group members can be selected randomly or intentionally. Either way, the selection method needs to be documented in the data analysis.
• The goal for group composition is to find individuals who are highly representative of the total (role-alike) population in the school or district.
• Never mix supervisors and the people they supervise in the same group. The "power relationship" in a group must be as close to absolutely flat (i.e., peer) as possible. Likewise, avoid including individuals who might rein as "experts" on any particular subject of group conversation. If everyone is an "expert," that's ok...what you want to avoid is one person holding forth on a subject to the detriment of the entire conversation.
• Groups are conducted with two evaluators...one to ask the questions and the other to record actual conversation and his/her observations of group behavior.

Beyond the context, we always ask our evaluators to cover the following points/topics with group members prior to starting the actual questions...

• Good morning/afternoon!
• Thank you for taking the time to meet with us. We will honor your time by making sure that we wrap up in the next 90 minutes.
• Does anyone mind if we tape record this for our records? We won’t share the tapes with district administrators.
• We are researchers under contract with the district to conduct an evaluation of how technology impacts teachers and students in classrooms across the district.
• Our evaluation is formative and qualitative. This means that our primary point is to gather information that helps the district fine-tune and improve its ongoing efforts; and that the information we are collecting is by design descriptive rather than numeric. We have a system for quantifying qualitative information, but for now, we don’t need to be concerned with counting things…we just want your words and your impressions.
• All information we collect is confidential as to who provided it. For example, we will not disclose who actually participated in this focus group nor will our final report make any attributions for quotes. We hope this encourages you (if you need encouragement) to speak freely.
• Our evaluation will result in a written report by (give date). This report will be delivered to the district technology coordinator (or whoever, per prior agreement) and it is our understanding that s/he intends to share it widely across the district.
• Any questions before we start?
• Be sure that everyone signs and completes the info on the sign-up sheet.

We tend to break our questions into several thematic groups. These are:

Student Access and Use
Teacher Fluency
Teacher Vision and Strategy
Teacher Access and Professional Development

Student Access and Use Questions

1. Describe how your students typically use lab or classroom computers.

2. What kinds of software is available for student use in the classroom or lab?

3. How do students typically use the computers…and why?

4. Could you give me an estimate of the % of students who have access to a computer at home?

5. We’re interested in your impressions of how the information technology you have just described has impacted your students’ learning. Overall, how have students been impacted by the use of technology in your school? (probe for examples, evidence)

more motivated?

more engaged?

better cooperative learners?

more effective "reward" for completing work

more distracted

6. How do you evaluate your students in terms of their technology use?

Special or specific assessments?

Nothing in addition to non-technology-specific assessments.

Other?

7. What does technology allow your students to do now — either physically or intellectually — that would have been impossible (or at least more difficult) before technology was widely available in your school?

(allow for the fact that they may not think that technology is currently "widely available")

Probe for: Hardware, Placement, Software, Support, Policies, other…

Teacher Fluency Questions

9. Please describe how you most frequently make use of school computers. We don’t want to know all of what you do…just what you most often do.

(probe for uses directly related to instruction, administrative uses/record keeping, personal productivity, etc.)

OK, that’s what you most frequently do. Now tell us some of the other things…regardless of how often you might do them.

10. If not on your desk or in your classroom, where do you use computers most often?

teacher's lounge

home

school computer lab

library/media center

 

11. Do you have access to a computer at home?

(yes or no answer)

 

12. How accessible are the classroom or lab computers to teachers throughout the day?

available all day

available only during off-hours

available with sign up

 

13. What, if any, impact has the use of information technology had on your teaching?

(probe for the following list w/o reading it)

more efficient

easier record keeping

more collaboration with peers/reduced isolation

more fun teaching?

changed role from expert to facilitator?

more creative/adventuresome with curriculum

more individualized instruction?

access to better resources

more

better parent contact?

Other_____________

14. In what ways has your professional practice (i.e., teaching) improved through the use of technology?

(designed to be pretty open-ended. Allow for the fact that the "improvement" may have been mostly negative)

 

15. What barriers have you encountered in trying to use technology in the classroom?

too little time to learn

inadequate professional development

periods too short

finding software

Other_____________

Teacher Vision/Strategy Questions

16. How do you get your ideas for integrating technology in the classroom?

17. What is the most interesting or intriguing use of technology in education that you have ever heard about? It doesn’t matter to us whether you can actually DO this yet…we just want to know what you find interesting.

Teacher Access and Professional Development Questions

18. What changes would you like to see made in your school with regard to how technology is allocated or structured?

(Note that they may comment on both physical infrastructure as well as support issues)

19. How often is technology staff development offered at your school and/or in the district…and who is responsible for conducting this training?

20. What barriers have you encountered in terms of getting the technology training you want and/or need?

21. What has been the most useful use technology workshop you have attended, and why?

22. Is there anything else you would like to share with us?

Thank you for your time!

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