Reference no: EM13338866 , Length: 1 page

The following is an excerpt from the transcript of the first undergraduate focus group. This group included 14 students with to following makeup: 50% male and 50% female; 93% work part-time or more, and 7% do not work; and 29% management majors. with other majors no more than 15%.

Moderator: So what do you guys think are some ways that the college (not the University) can be improved?
Jeff: I really like the fact that professors are accessible, willing to help and a lot of them let us call them by their first name. Something that I think could be better is that we don't spend enough time learning how to do thins but instead professors spend too much time talking about theory.
Sarah: Yea, Yea, I agree totally. It seems like most of the time we aren't learning practical skills but just talking about what we "should" do, not really learning how to do it.
Moderator: Interesting points, how would you suggest the college try to increase the amount of practical learning?
Todd: It would really be cool if we could do more real-life professional work in our classes. Things like skill-based projects that focus on doing what we would really do in our profession.
Tim: I think we would all have to do a mandatory internship as part of our major. Right now, some majors let you do it as an elective but they are really hard to find and get.
Moderator: Good idea. Are there other things you think we could improve?
Rhonda: I agree that the professor try really hard to be open to students but the advising is really not very good, I don't know how to fix it but I know my advisor is pretty much useless.
Ariel : I know. I know. It is so frustrating sometimes. I go to my advisor and she tells me to just fill in my degree planning sheet and she'll sigh it. It's like they don't even know what I should be taking or why.
Jon : My advisor is kind of funny, he just tells me that he doesn't really know that much about classes he doesn't teach and my guess is as good as his. At least he's honest anyway.
Moderator : Ok, Ok, So the advising you are getting from the faculty leaves a little to be desired. What do you guys do to figure out how to plan your degrees if your advisors aren't helping much?
Sarah: I just ask my friends who are further along in the major than I am.
Mark: Yea, me too. In the Student Marketing Association we all give each other advice on what professors are good, what classes go good together, which have prerequisites and stuff like that. It would be cool if we could have something like that for the whole college.
Moderator: Don't you think CBE could be improved if we developed some sort of Peer-advising Program?

Using these excerpts as representative of the entire focus group transcript, answer the following questions:

1. Do you think focus group were the appropriate research method in this case, given the research objectives? what other types(s) of research might provide useful data?

2. Evaluate the questions posed by the moderator in light of the research objectives/question :(a) Are any of them leading or biased in any way? (b) Can you think of any additional question that could/should be included?

3. Can we generalize these findings to all of the College's Students? why or why not?