Welcome back. If you're around people doing qualitative research, the term screener will often come up. Technically, it would be a screening questionnaire, because you are screening for criteria you want or you don't want in regard to the participants of your research. So for this reason, we're going to design the screener. After this lesson, you will be able to describe components of a screener and explain its purpose in your research. You will also be able to write a screener for your course project. Let's start by seeing what a screener collects. Most often, all screeners collect an age range, the sex of the respondent, and where they are from. Sometimes you collect income level, education, marital status, number of children, or other criteria you're looking to have in the group. You also might include the time and date of the group if they're available, and their contact information. A blank screener is usually attached as an addendum to your Focus Group report. The screener information is usually summarized within the background section of your report. For example, you might say we had 10 women participate in the cell phone focus group who were in the age range between 20 and 30, and all were students at UC Davis. The last question on the screener is a standard question that attempts to eliminate people who are too familiar with marketing, marketing research, PR, advertising or working in the industry you are investigating. This screener was designed to be asked over the phone or in person. The answer served to provide an accurate breakdown of the participants in the group. In addition, the screener helps you to get a good mixture of participants and to properly divide the groups. The immunisations screener on the other hand, was very simple and intended to be posted within the desired community, or handed directly to the participant. It is handy to have them read the criteria for the group, and the dates and times of the meetings. Once recruited, you can hand them a flier so they can remember the focus group details. As you can see, the only criteria was that the person had to have children between zero and five, and live in the community. The essential parts of any screener include the brief statement about the research and the time and date of focus group. Mostly, you will have yes or no responses to the screener questions. You will write down the time and location of when and where they were recruited. You will also include the time, date, and location of the focus group meeting. You will record when they are available, along with their name and contact information, so that you can send them a confirmation letter. As you can see in this immunisation flier, it is words that have self screener information. The person reading the flyer has to self evaluate whether they meet the criteria. Usually there's a tear-off for them so they can keep that information and call you about participating. The flyer will usually have a catchy graphic that represents brainstorming with one sentence about the group. It will also list where and when the group will take place, as well as the amount offered for the incentive. The Flyers should also have your first name and contact information. Let's think through creating a screener for a business case scenario. We have already decided we want to do maybe four focus groups, two students and two with members of the community of Davis. We'll do this to test out how they feel about this new cell phone. Since only two criteria are different, student or non-student, male or female, besides the time and location of the groups, the screener for all four focus groups would pretty much be the same. This type of group would be easy to recruit in person. So I might prefer doing it that way. By recruiting in person, I can easily see whether they might fall into that age bracket, and whether they are male or female, and if they are on or off campus. You would just be confirming things when you read the screener information. I would provide a general overview of the topic in the form of a three single sentences. It might be something like we are looking for participants in a one time focus group about cell phone purchasing. This is research only and not sales. You will get paid for your time. Then you would have a question, Are you between 20 and 30 years of age? And with a check off yes or no. Are you a student at UC Davis? With a check off yes or no. And since we are looking for people who own a cell phone, you would ask, Do you have a cell phone that has been purchased in the last two years? And a checkoff yes or no. That does it for a lesson on designing a screener. This is one of the essential instruments used in qualitative market research. It will help you make sure to get good respondents for either your focus group, or in-person interviews and to keep track of them. Knowing how to design one will certainly help you in this line of work. Now that you have completed this lesson, you should be able to describe component parts of a screener and explain its purpose qualitative research, and to write a screener appropriate for a business case scenario.
