Lori Peterson on Conducting Focus Groups with High School
Students with Disabilities I am Lori Peterson an Assistant
Professor at the University of Northern Colorado. Recently, I
worked on a project conducting a series of focus groups with
high school students with disabilities. I wanted to share tips
and lessons learned from this experience. - Feed them and they
will come! High school students love food. We conducted the
focus groups near lunch time and gave each group free pizza. We
had almost 100% attendance. - Know the school calendar. We had
an issue conducting focus groups on senior skip day! - Conduct
focus groups on location. If you can work with the school and
conduct focus groups on site, this eliminates the need for
transportation. Students with disabilities may not drive, so
this can increase the likelihood of participation. - Conduct
focus groups during school hours. This offers the additional
perk that some students enjoy ‘getting out of class’. There is a
drawback though; you are limited to one