Focus Group Feedback

Parent Zone – Hashim Pervase

1) Which Of The Proposed Articles Did You Like?

Rising Stars, it is all about the up and coming talent within the college and we feel that would appeal to parents. It’s also great because parents can be involved in helping their child pursue talents outside of the college too.

2) Which Of The Proposed Articles Did You Not Like?

Sports, we feel that you have orientated them more towards males and that females aren’t given much of a mention. On second thought, we realise you didn’t state the gender of the sports teams and now we realise there are teams for both genders.

3) Why Did You Like The First Proposal?

People are always interested in new talent that emerges locally, and that parents would too be interested. We feel that by showing more than just educational results parents will see a more rounded developed college.

4) What Suggestions Can You Add About The Sports?

Given that only one person in this focus group doesn’t grasp that it is not orientated for just males, we will say that the only improvement is to possibly talk more about leisure sports, as most people would play for fun and not at a competitive serious level that the college plays at. Also, adding other activities such as societies and not just sports, some parents aren’t moved by sports and will rather hear about music, for instance.

Title – Daniel Hans

For this assignment we did a focus group to find out what our target audience thought about our ideas for the student magazine that we are going to create. For my section of the focus group I showed a mind map of the ideas that we had come up with for the title of the magazine, after I had shown the mind map I asked questions about our ideas to pin point which were the best ideas and which were the worst.

First of all I asked which 3 titles did they like the most, the majority of the focus group picked The Sixth Page, The Purple Pages and The Purple Pigeon. This showed us that the top 3 ideas which the audience liked the most. Next I asked them why did they like these three titles they had chosen, we got different feedback from each person, some of them said that they like how the ideas related to the college and also that they related to the fact it’s a magazine too, others said they liked how some titles rolled of your tongue and were nice to say.

I then asked which 3 they didn’t like the most, they said, Manor Road Mail, Student Enquirer and the Solihull Scribe, this showed that there were some ideas that they didn’t like at all and that we could cross out straight away before doing our questionnaire. Once again I asked why they had chosen these 3 and they said that for the Manor Road Mail they didn’t like the use of Road and Mail in the title but did like the use of Manor. They also said they didn’t like the Solihull Scribe because they just thought it didn’t relate to the college and they didn’t like the use of the word scribe in it.

Then Finally I asked which one out of the 3 they liked most was the best, they said different ideas which were The Purple Pigeon and The Sixth Page but after a little discussion they all agreed that The Sixth Page was best, the reason why it was best is because it had a clear relation to the college and also a link to the fact it’s a magazine, they also thought it sounded professional.

College Events – Shannon Corry

Introduction:As a class we all came together and discussed our own individual aspects of the Student Magazine. It was a chance for me and my peers to discuss their opinion on what they would like or dislike on the certain ideas we came up for to be used in the magazine.

What questions were used within the focus group?There was five questions overall that was used within the process of the focus group. I personally think that they were very vague, not being specific when asking my class mates to justify their answers. The first question used was 'Which 3 events interests you the most?', I had my PowerPoint up on the overhead projector whilst asking this question and the others. The reason why I asked this question was so it would help me when writing out my student questionnaire as I could highlight the key answers in which was given by the focus group feedback. I got them to pick out three because I thought any more than that they may just be picking one for the sake of it, which would then allow me to input my own options into the questionnaire. They decided that the; Christmas Concert, College Production and Arabian Nights were the best options. This then helped me to already have three options available for my student questionnaire questions. I then got my peers to justify their answers, so I knew that the options they had picked where done using thought. As my second question wasn't as specific, only ask the peers why, they only gave justification on the Christmas Concert Production. They discussed that it relates to the Christmas period, which when the Student Magazine will be published. They also said that is something students will be attending alongside the client has requested to use this sort of information, in relations to the College. I then moved onto the question 'Which 3 events do not interest you?' as a group they only provided one answer which was 'The Grimm Tales'. The group justified their answer by saying it was not relevant to the Christmas Period. There were no other questions provided on the negative side of the college event options so it didn't enable me to get more feedback. The final question was then ' Which main events would you like to see more of? The options they chose were; UCAS, University and Open Days. I did not provide a justification question so I was not able to understand why they had chosen these options.

Strengths and Weaknesses:My strengths of this focus group would be that I was specific when referring to the questions such as; which 3 events interest you the most and which 3 events do not interest you?. However my weakness would be that I wasn't very specific when I got the peers to justify their answers. I think if I was more specific when asking them to justify it would have been more beneficial when writing up my questionnaire for the student magazine. I also think that I could have asked more questions, opening the variety of questions used and the different aspects they could have been based on.

How were the questions beneficial towards to the student magazine? And the questions that will be used in the questionnaire?I think that in regards to the student magazine, the questions used have allowed some benefits as it has enabled me to understand the different options of others. It also means that I can highlight the common selection of the ones used so will increase the readers for the magazine when finalized. In relations to my questionnaire I think that the questions used, have benefited me a lot, as I understand what main options I will provide to the students when writing up the questionnaire. It also means that I can start deleting certain options, allowing the questionnaire to be more specific when asking the questions.

Conclusion:I think overall I have received some beneficial information, that relating the magazine to the Christmas period is something that students are interested in. However I think that I could have provided more questions alongside with specific justification to made by my peers. If I was to does this focus group again I would defiantly be more precise on the justified questions that may be asked.

Interests and Hobbies – Jack Vincent

In my focus group I had to gain information about what interests and hobbies different students were into. In order to do this I had to make a presentation and a mind map with my group and had to write and ask questions about the interests and hobbies I had presented to the focus group. The 4 interests and hobbies I showed them were: Games, Music, Art and sports.

The first question I asked was ‘which of these Interests or hobbies interest you the most?’ The answer by an overwhelming margin was Music and games. This was because they found that sports and art were less inclusive and only certain people would be into reading the stories about them. They said that music and games are things that everybody likes.

My next question was ‘Are these the kind of things you’d expect to see in a student magazine?’ The answer was a definite yes because all students like these things and they would be interested in reading about them.

My last question was’ do these actually interest you?’ The answer was yes because they were all very popular things and were highly popular things to write about.

News + Features Stories – Rashpal Reehal

Which story did you like?

‘Christmas switch on’ and ‘stop smoking campaign’. They said that these two stories are relevant and are key topics when watching the news and reading local newspapers.

Which story did you least like?

The focus group did not like the hard news much, they said it did not relate to the whole magazine and was off topic. They also said that it might worry students and also ‘demotivate’ them when doing something new.

Why did you like the particular story you chose?

The reason they chose the ‘Christmas switch on’ was because it was festive and it relates to the time of year. They also said that people would get ‘satisfaction’ reading the magazine as the magazine will be full of happiness, they also stated the whole magazine would have a much more positive and festive feeling.

Why didn’t you like the particular story you chose?

Again they said it was off topic and not relevant. They were accepting something to do with ‘winter’ and ‘Christmas’. They said if stories like this are involved it might put of some students.

Out of all of the stories which one do you think will have the most positive impact?

They said the feature article, and the ones related to ‘Christmas’. They also said the ‘Christmas’ articles will have an effect on the students reading it. Even though the criticised the hard news which we were going to include they did state the fact that ‘hard news’ could be relevant for parents purposes.