Four Kids and a Head

It was 30 minutes into my very long 90-minute focus group session when I turned around and noticed something strange: a disembodied head at the table.

Was it a focus group with gun enthusiasts gone horribly wrong? No. It was a focus group with young boys . . . and swivel chairs.

Extra coordination with facilities is always necessary when you are conducting focus groups with children (in this case, 9- to 11-year-olds), as more guidelines are needed to eliminate as many potential distractions as possible. This facility had followed our instructions to a tee: no soda or high-sugar foods were served to the kids, no food or drink was brought into the groups, and no items besides paper and pencils were in the room. Earlier, the girls' 9-11 group didn't even notice the swivel chairs, so we did not think to change them for the boys' group.

The first indicator of our oversight was when one of the boys decided to treat his chair like a Sit 'N Spin, spinning around and around. (I loved that toy.) The boy next to him also began the dizzying motion. When giggling ensued between the two boys, I immediately announced, "Okay, new rule: no spinning our chairs." Soon after this proclamation, the blonde boy sitting at the end of the table thought it would be the perfect time to test an amazing new chair feature he discovered -- the pumping mechanism.

After a minute of watching him play with the magic chair, I told him he needed to choose one level and stay there. He followed my instructions for a while, but at one point, when I turned around to ask him a question, I realized he had set the chair level so low that his chin was now sitting on the table. I had been talking to four kids and a head. He was probably just resting from his sugar high, most likely induced by his Coke and Lucky Charms breakfast.

I continued as if everything were normal, because he was still paying attention and, for some reason, none of the boys seemed to notice -- there was no giggling and no one else had decided to take the same plunge (literally). Since it didn't seem to be distracting anyone, including the head, I played along.

The head eventually became a real live boy again, and I made a permanent mental note to add another guideline to the list of facility requests for future kids groups.