Nutrition Education and Promotion Toolkit for Teens - Focus Group Testing

Attachment E OMB No. 0584-0524

Exp. Date 06/30/2016

Attachment E

Moderator Discussion Guide for Focus Groups

With High School Teachers

OMB BURDEN STATEMENT: According to the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, an agency may not conduct or sponsor, and a person is not required to respond to, a collection of information unless it displays a valid OMB control number. The valid OMB control number for this information collection is 0584-0524. The time required to complete this information collection is estimated to average 135 minutes (2.25 hours) per response for the entire focus group, including time to review instructions, search existing data resources, gather and maintain the data needed, and complete and review the collection of information.

MODERATOR DISCUSSION GUIDE FOR FOCUS GROUPS
WITH HIGH SCHOOL TEACHERS

PRE-GROUP EXERCISE WITH SUPERTRACKER 15 minutes

Confirm each participant has Smartphone or ipad. If not, provide participants with KRC- iPad. See appended handout A for directions.

I. INTRODUCTION 15 minutes

• Moderator introduction:

  • My name is [INSERT]. I’m a researcher and independent moderator with KRC Research. Thank you so much for agreeing to participate in today’s discussion.

  • We are conducting these discussions with students and teachers across the country on behalf of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food and Nutrition Service.

  • Today’s conversation is about food, nutrition, and physical activity. The discussion will be about two hours long. Everything you say is private and no individual will be identified.

  • I’m not an expert on food, nutrition, and exercise. I’m here to guide the discussion and hear your thoughts, ideas, and opinions. All of you are the experts today. There are no right or wrong answers.

  • To get started, let me explain how our discussion will work today:

    • There are no wrong answers—we want to hear what all of you personally think.

    • I’d like to hear from everyone here. Please speak one at a time, and let everyone have some time to speak. You may have different opinions. That’s ok--we want to hear from all of you. All of your opinions are important.

    • We’re recording the discussion in audio and video formats. This is so I won’t need to slow down to take notes. With the recording, I’ll have an accurate record of the conversation when I’m summarizing the discussion in a report for FNS. Again, no individuals will be identified with the information that is shared with FNS.

    • Any questions?

• Participant introductions:

  • To start, let’s go around the table. Briefly, I’d like each of you to tell us your first name, as well as the subject(s) and grade(s) you teach.

II. TEACHING MOTIVATIONS, CHALLENGES 15 minutes

[Goal: To gain insight on the challenges teachers and their students face.]

1. What do you enjoy about teaching, generally?

2. What are the biggest challenges you face in teaching today?

   1. (PROBE AS NECESSARY) What about in the classroom – what specific challenges do you face there?

3. What’s it like to teach high school students?

   1. What do you enjoy about it?

   2. What is most difficult?

4. Thinking about your students, what are some of the big challenges they are facing today both in and out of school? (PROBE ON: NUTRITION, EXPLORE academic/learning, social, health, etc.)

   1. Do these challenges vary among different kinds of students you teach? How? (PROBE: BY GENDER, ETHNICITY, RACE, AGE)

   2. In your role as teacher, how do you help them deal with these challenges?

   3. What are your most successful strategies for promoting learning and overcoming challenges? What makes those strategies successful?

III. STUDENTS’ HEALTH AND SCREEN DEVICES 10 minutes

[Goal: To gain insight on students’ use of screens, especially in the classroom, and particularly on health-related topics.]

Now I’d like to hear about how you use electronic devices--including computers, laptops, tablets and smartphones--in teaching.

1. Do you have internet access in your classroom?

2. Which, if any, of these devices do you use in your classroom? For each device that you use I’d like to know:

   1. What do you use it for?

   2. How often?

   3. How effective is it? For what reasons?

   4. Are there any limitations, downsides or problems associated with using these devices? (IF YES) What are they?

3. Do you use online tools, such as websites, in the classroom?

   1. (IF YES) What kinds of online tools do you use? Do students also use these tools? Are there specific interfaces for the teacher and then for the students? Do students access the online tools in class, at home, or both?

      1. Is this mainly a resource for yourself, or it is also used by your students? How do you/your students use online tools?

      2. Do you ever use these kinds of electronic devices to teach health-related curriculum?

         1. (IF YES) How well has that worked? Why/why not? Can you give us an example?

         2. (IF NO) Are there any reasons in particular you do not use online tools in teaching?

      3. Do any of the online tools involve interactive games or activities designed to directly engage students?

         1. (IF YES) Tell us about that. What works best?

IV. TEACHING HEALTH IN SCHOOL 25 minutes

[Goal: To understand the experiences and challenges of teaching health-oriented curriculum in the school environment, including teachers’ previous experience with teaching about health and nutrition.]

1. (MODERATOR CONFIRM) Do you teach a health-related course or curriculum in school now? This might be part of physical education, family and consumer sciences or some other broader subject.

1. Is it a whole course, or a unit within a broader course? (IF part of a larger course) What course is it a part of? How long does the unit last?

2. (ASK OF ALL) Is this course available to all H.S. grades? (IF NO, ASK) which grades take the course? (IF YES, ASK) in what grade or grades do students typically take the course?

3. Can you describe the content of that course/unit? (PROBE AS NECESSARY)

   1. Does it include nutrition? Physical activity? Anything else?

   2. How long does the unit last? How many times per week or per month do you meet?

   3. How is the course organized? How many units or lessons are there?

4. Tell us about your experience teaching that course. (PROBE)

   1. What are your students’ reactions to the course/unit? Are they interested, or bored? Are they engaged in the learning and activities, or not so much?

   2. Are there other topics that students express interest in talking about when it comes to health, nutrition, and physical activity?

   3. How do you motivate your students?

   4. What works well in the curriculum? What about it is effective?

   5. Do you include any activities that are especially engaging? What about games? With an element of competition? What works well and is engaging?

   6. What helps students to really learn about health and how to manage their health? For what reasons?

   7. What turns students off when it comes to the subject of health and wellness? For what reasons?

2. In your opinion, what holds students back from making health choices when it comes to nutrition?

   1. Do your students talk about these barriers? What do you observe about the way they talk about healthy eating choices and/or physical activity?

3. Do you try to motivate your students to apply what they learn about health OUTSIDE your classroom – to their day-to-day lives?

   1. (IF YES) How do you motivate students outside the classroom? What is most effective? For what reasons is that effective? What are the obstacles?

   2. Do you ever encourage students to discuss healthy food and physical activity choices with their families? Introduce activities that engage students’ families?

      1. (IF YES) What do you say or do to motivate them? What seems to be most effective in eliciting their interest and applying what they learn?

   3. How do you think these healthy behaviors could be reinforced in the broader community outside the school? What are the obstacles? How might you or school leadership overcome them?

      1. Are there other ways, besides health-related courses, that the school currently reinforces healthy behaviors and attitudes in the broader community?

      2. (IF NO) What are the reasons you do not try to motivate your students to apply learning about health OUTSIDE your classroom--anything in particular?

V. INTEGRATING CURRICULUM 10 minutes

[Goal: To understand the process teachers use to introduce and integrate a new curriculum into their teaching, and to identify the barriers and ways to overcome key obstacles.]

1. What is the process for choosing a new curriculum involving health and wellness at your school?

   1. How much discretion do you have as a teacher?

   2. When you look at a new curriculum, what features tend to make it more appealing to you? What do you look for in a curriculum?

2. How do you integrate a new curriculum into the school year?

   1. How hard is it to integrate a new curriculum?

   2. What could make it easier to integrate new curriculum?

      1. How much lead time do you need?

      2. What kinds of tools or guidance are most important?

VI. NUTRITION AND PHYSICAL ACTIVITY TOOLS & GUIDELINES 15 minutes

[Goal: To understand the strengths of current tools for teaching about health and nutrition.]

1. HANDOUT B: Earlier, we talked about food and nutrition. Take a minute to look at this handout, and then we’ll talk about it.

   1. What is your reaction to MyPlate? What does it say and show?

      1. Have you used the MyPlate concept and tools with your students before today? Are your students already familiar with MyPlate?

      2. Is this helpful/likely to be helpful in teaching students about nutrition? Why?

      3. (PROBE) How easy do you think this is for students to understand? What questions would they have?

   2. Would your students be interested in eating in a way that corresponds more to the groups and portions of foods that are conveyed by MyPlate or not? Some of your students?

      1. (IF YES) Which of your students might be more interested in eating like this?

      2. (IF NO) What gets in the way of your students’ interest?

   3. Is there anything that would make it easier for your students to follow this information in their daily life? What would make it easier?

2. REFER TO HANDOUT A. Before we started this discussion, you looked at a web-site called SuperTracker.

1. Now we are going to talk about the answers to the questions that we asked you to prepare during the pre-group activity. What was your first impression of SuperTracker? If you have seen SuperTracker before, what was your first impression of SuperTracker the first time you arrived at the site?

   1. Was it easy to use, or not really? What’s not easy about it?

   2. Was it helpful, or not? For what reasons?

2. Did you learn anything new or interesting when you looked up foods and physical activities?

   1. (IF YES) What was new or interesting?

   2. Do you think your students would find some of the information in SuperTracker new and interesting?

      1. IF YES: What?

3. Have you/Can you see using the SuperTracker as part of curriculum on nutrition?

   1. For what reasons?

   2. How did/might you use it?

   3. Is there anything that would make it more useful?

VII. CURRICULUM CONCEPT AND GAME CONCEPTS 25 minutes

[Goal: Gain insight into appeal of the FoodGPS concept and game ideas, and identify elements that motivate positive behavior.]

N

FoodGPS

This program is focused on empowering teens to choose a healthy lifestyle when it comes to eating and physical activity.

There are many curricula available. So what makes this one different? It’s puts students in the driver’s seat by providing information, skills and practice to make real-life choices through a fun and interactive approach.

ow, I’m going to show you a brief, overall description of a school learning class on healthful food and physical activity choices. Here we are calling it FoodGPS. The package is not complete yet, because we really want your help in understanding the elements that need to be clarified or fleshed out, and any ideas you have to make it engaging for students.

First, here’s the brief description of this unit:

HANDOUT C: This is a description of a curriculum package under development. After you read the description, please jot down your first overall reactions on the handout. Just write down a few words or phrases that capture your initial reactions. I’ll give you a few minutes and then we’ll talk about it.

1. (MODERATOR GIVES THEM A COUPLE OF MINUTES TO JOT DOWN THOUGHTS.) Okay, what are your initial reactions?

2. What, if anything, appeals to you about this description? Why is that?

3. Is there anything you don’t find appealing? What is that?

4. What questions come to mind?

   1. What else would you want to know?

   2. What additional information would you need to consider for this kind of curriculum?

5. Do you think your students might be interested in a curriculum that is built around this description?

   1. (IF YES) What would be interesting about this for students? What would appeal to them? For what reasons?

   2. (IF NO) What would not be interesting about this for students? What might make it more appealing?

6. Would this kind of approach be more appealing to some students but not others?

   1. Which students would find this approach more or less appealing?

   2. What would account for these differences in interest?

7. Do you think your students would want to actively participate – would they be engaged?

   1. (IF YES) Why? What is it that would motivate them?

   2. (IF NO) Why not? What would motivate them to be actively engaged?

(SPECIFIC PROBES, AS NECESSARY)

8. What does the name FoodGPS say to you? How do you think students would react to that name? Do you have any suggestions for a more appealing name?

9. What do you think about the idea here of a “fun” approach to learning about food and physical activity choices? Would it be effective in motivating your students? Why/why not?

10. What are your thoughts about including cooking as part of this curriculum? Including food tasting in the curriculum? Including a 3 minute exercise spot in the curriculum? Would these activities be appealing to your students?

11. What about the idea of students competing against each other, individually or in teams? Would that be engaging? Do you use competition in any of your classroom activities? How well does it work?

HANDOUT D: Here is another handout that describes some ideas for games or activities that could be included in a class about healthy eating and physical activity.

Take a few minutes and rate how appealing you think each idea would be to your students. If you think the idea is very appealing, circle a 5. If the idea is not at all appealing, circle a 1. You can circle any number between 1 and 5.

(WHEN PARTICIPANTS FINISH) Next, pick the ONE idea that you think would be the most fun and interesting to students and draw a star in the empty box to the right of the “Very appealing.” If you can’t decide which one is your favorite, try to pick the one that most caught your attention.

Before we talk about your opinions, your handout should have a numerical rating for each of the five ideas and a single star for the idea you like the best.

1. (TALLY 1/2s AND 4/5s AND TOP RANKED IDEAS ON EASEL; DISCUSS TWO IDEAS WITH HIGHEST RATINGS AND ONE IDEA WITH LOWEST RATING. IF TIME ALLOWS, DISCUSS ADDITIONAL IDEAS. FOR EACH IDEA DISCUSSED.)

1. What is your reaction to _____ the idea with the highest ratings?

   1. What, if anything, do you think your students would like about it?

      1. Does it seem like it would be fun? What about it would be fun?

   2. What do you, as a teacher, like about it, if anything?

   3. Is there anything you don’t like about it? What is that?

   4. Is there anything that could make it more appealing or more fun to your students?

   5. Is there anything that could make it easier to implement and more useful to you?

2. IF NOT ALREADY COVERED: Have you ever done other activities like this in school to make learning more fun? What was the best? What made it good?

3. IF TIME: Other than the ideas presented on the handout, can you think of other games or activities that would be a fun way to learn about healthy eating and exercise?

VIII. WRAP UP 5 minutes

1. Is there anything you didn’t get to say that you think we should know about creating a curriculum for teaching about health and nutrition?

2. To wrap things up, I’d like you to complete the following sentence. “The thing that would get my students really interested in nutrition and physical activity is _________________.”

HANDOUT A - PRE-GROUP EXERCISE WITH SUPERTRACKER

Open your phone or tablet’s Internet browser and navigate to:

http://supertracker.usda.gov.

Spend a few minutes exploring the site.

1. What is your first impression of SuperTracker? If you have seen SuperTracker before, what was your first impression of SuperTracker the first time you arrived at the site?

2. What do you think it could be used for?

3. Did you learn anything new or interesting when you looked up foods and physical activities?

Now, click on “Food-A-Pedia.” Type in your favorite food and answer the following questions in the space below:

4. How many calories does it have?

5. Which food groups is it a part of?

6. How much protein is in your food?

7. How much carbohydrate is in your food?

8. How much Vitamin A does your food contain?

Now, click on “Physical Activity Tracker.”

Type in your favorite exercise or physical activity. (If you don’t have a favorite, type “walking.”) Press “go” and answer the following questions:

9. What is the intensity level of your activity?

10. Is it muscle strengthening?

“Food-A-Pedia” and “Physical Activity Tracker” are two features of SuperTracker. Other features of SuperTracker include:

• “Food Tracker”

  • Track the foods you eat and compare to your nutrition targets.

• “My Weight Manager”

  • Get weight management guidance; enter your weight and track progress over time.

• “My Top 5 Goals”

  • Choose up to 5 personal goals; sign up for tips and support from your virtual coach.

• “My Recipes”

  • Build and save your favorite recipes for tracking, and analyze the nutrition info.

OMB BURDEN STATEMENT: According to the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, an agency may not conduct or sponsor, and a person is not required to respond to, a collection of information unless it displays a valid OMB control number. The valid OMB control number for this information collection is 0584-0524. The time required to complete this information collection is estimated to average 15 minutes (.25 hours) per response for the pre-group exercise, including time to review instructions, search existing data resources, gather and maintain the data needed and complete and review the collection of information.

HANDOUT B - MYPLATE

OMB BURDEN STATEMENT: According to the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, an agency may not conduct or sponsor, and a person is not required to respond to, a collection of information unless it displays a valid OMB control number. The valid OMB control number for this information collection is 0584-0524. The time required to complete this information collection is estimated to average 135 minutes (2.25 hours) per response for the entire focus group, including time to review instructions, search existing data resources, gather and maintain the data needed and complete and review the collection of information.

HANDOUT C - FoodGPS DESCRIPTION

FoodGPS

Food. Fitness. Fun? You may not think healthy eating and exercise are interesting, but with “FoodGPS” you’ll learn through fun and interactive games and activities.

You’ll compete with friends in the classroom as you learn about how to make your life healthier every day.  And you’ll get the tools, tips and tricks you need to keep living a healthy lifestyle, so you can look, feel and be your best.

 

OMB BURDEN STATEMENT: According to the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, an agency may not conduct or sponsor, and a person is not required to respond to, a collection of information unless it displays a valid OMB control number. The valid OMB control number for this information collection is 0584-0524. The time required to complete this information collection is estimated to average 135 minutes (2.25 hours) per response for the entire focus group, including time to review instructions, search existing data resources, gather and maintain the data needed and complete and review the collection of information.

HANDOUT D - GAME OR ACTIVITY CONCEPTS

Here are some ideas for games or activities that could be included as part of the curriculum package.

For each idea, rate how much you think your students would like the activity. If you think students would like the idea very much, circle a 5. If you think the students would not like the idea at all, circle a 1. You can circle any number between 1 and 5.

Like It

Students are challenged to try a pre-determined new food every month. To compete, students must take a photo and post an on-line photo of themselves eating the food. The student with the most “likes” gets to offer tastes of the food during lunch, at bus/car pick up, etc. or some other relevant prize.

Not like at all

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1

2

3

4

5



Like very much

Investigative Reporter

Students could serve as reporters within their schools observing the food environment in their school as well as exploring new and unfamiliar food. Students then would create a report or profile to be included in school announcements, in the school paper, on the school website or social media, etc. Through this activity, teens are empowered to be the purveyors of the information.

Not like at all



1

2

3

4

5



Like very much

Teen Cooking Show

Teens host their own cooking show and create humorous videos which encourage other teens to try new healthy foods.

Not like at all

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1

2

3

4

5



Like very much

(continued on next page)

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Food Spies

The “CSI” of food, where students investigate popular foods, creating background profiles and reports, and “cracking the case” to determine whether students are eating as healthfully as they should be.

Not like at all

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1

2

3

4

5



Like very much

On Trial

A mock trial scenario where teens can put certain aspects of the school or community food environment “on trial.” Students must then research and serve as the judge, prosecutor, defense and jury for the trial. This would integrate learning into the trial and research process, while also creating a competitive aspect to incentivize teens to participate.

Not like at all



1

2

3

4

5



Like very much

OMB BURDEN STATEMENT: According to the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, an agency may not conduct or sponsor, and a person is not required to respond to, a collection of information unless it displays a valid OMB control number. The valid OMB control number for this information collection is 0584-0524. The time required to complete this information collection is estimated to average 135 minutes (2.25 hours) per response for the entire focus group, including time to review instructions, search existing data resources, gather and maintain the data needed and complete and review the collection of information.