Collect permission forms and confirm student participation.

Recruiters should stick to the deadline for collecting permission forms from students (at least four days before the focus group is scheduled to take place). For legal reasons, it is imperative that you have permission forms in hand before students arrive at the focus groups. As you collect the permission forms, remind students about the day, time, and place for the focus group. You might also give them a written sheet detailing this information. On the day before the focus group is scheduled to take place, call students (or parents) to confirm that they will be in school the next day and that they still plan to participate. Remind them that you will only need eight students in the group, so the first students to show up at the site will be the first eight participants.

Once you know who the focus group participants will be, alert teachers or staff members that the focus groups will be taking place in Room X and ask them to excuse the student participants and student facilitators. You do not need to go into any great detail. Simply give them the names of the students and let them know when they will be out of class. In order to keep student participants' identities somewhat confidential, avoid announcing students' names over the intercom. You may want to send someone around to individual classrooms, though, to round up the students. If for some reason you do not collect enough permission forms from among your 12 invited participants, you will need to do some additional recruiting. Go back to your original slot sheet, which should contain the names of at least five "reserves." You can also do an additional random sample to make up for no-shows. Be sure to give yourselves enough time between your deadline for collecting permission forms and the date of the focus group to do any necessary additional recruiting.

Next: Complete logistics planning.