The school board of St. Patrick's High School is concerned about the rise of student violence involving guns during the past two months. During an emergency meeting, Father Hennessy, the school's principal, insisted that steps be taken to return student behavior to its traditionally exemplary level. He suggested that this rise in the level of violence was for reasons beyond the experience of most of the school board members, and recommended that they needed to gather some back-ground information on the situation in order to address the problem knowledgeably. The school board agreed with his proposal and decided to commission a market research study to question students on whether they carried guns and their underlying motivation for doing so. The research firm, Church and Associates, has decided to use focus groups or individual in-depth interviews to obtain the required information.
a. Which of the above-mentioned techniques is suitable for this purpose? Give reasons.
b. Church and Associates has recommended separate focus-group discussions involving the faculty. How can the moderator effectively encourage all the participants to discuss their feelings on the topic?
c. What possible questions could be asked in an in-depth interview?