Creating Interview Questions/Questionnaire

Today, Heather and I met for about 30 minutes and created a list of questions to ask people we will be interviewing about their research, thoughts, and questions in considering adoption. We believe their answers to our questions will help us determine what to put in our guidebook (what information we should provide for couples). We also plan on sending these questions out as a questionnaire to some people.

Creating a Focus Group Continued...

Today was much less productive than yesterday. We only had an hour to speak with as many professors as possible, but we ended up speaking with only 1 professor. We had scheduled an appointment with this professor yesterday, and he sincerely tried to help us, but he had no direct referrals of the people we are looking for in regards to interviews and a focus group. Heather and I plan to meet again soon to continue the search for couples to interview and to participate in our focus group.

Creating a Focus Group

Heather and I met and spoke with the professors in the OCOB, who were in their offices at the time, about our senior project. We asked each individual if he/she knew of anyone who had adopted internationally or domestically, or of anyone who was seriously considering adopting from within the US or abroad. In this attempt to create a focus group and/or set up meetings with couples for an interview, we received a few referrals and a great deal of encouragement for our project. Heather followed up by emailing all of the professors we spoke with, thanking them for their time, and reminding them to send us contact information for their adopting friends. Several professors were not in their offices and we ran out of time, so we plan on doing the same thing tomorrow.

Meeting with Heather

Heather and I have both been researching international adoption agencies online in order to get an idea for the scope of our project. We met today and decided to focus on 2 countries affected by the tsunami, Thailand and Malaysia. We also began brainstorming the next steps we need to take in doing the project. We decided to do a focus group and/or interviews with couples interested in adoption, and those who have already adopted, in order to help determine the most beneficial content to have in our guidebook. Why not ask our future readers what information and presentation of the information would be most beneficial to them?

After brainstorming ideas for how to go about creating a focus group and interviews with couples, we decided to meet with Dr. Wild for advice in this matter.