Spots - Roll Back Malaria

STEP 4: PRETEST• Persuasion: Does the message persuade the audience to act differently? Does theaudience hear the advantage or benefit to trying the behavior? Which spot mightbest convince them?For each spot, a researcher will ask a number of questions to get to these five mainareas. Because pretesting is a form of qualitative research, you may restate anyquestions or change the order of the questions during your research to suit thesituation.Recruiting participants for the pretestThe main requirement for selecting respondents for pretesting your spot is that theyare members of the target audience for that spot. For example:If the target audience is rural women with at least one child under five years old,make sure that everyone you recruit is rural, a woman and has at least one childunder five. The women must also be regular radio listeners. To determine this,ask each woman, “About how many hours do you listen to the radio during theweek?” Look for women who listen at least seven hours. They must alsounderstand and speak the language that the spot is in.Use a short screening questionnaire to make sure your participants represent yourtarget audience. A screening questionnaire asks a few simple questions about apotential respondent to be sure the person matches your target audience; excludethe person if he or she does not. A sample screening questionnaire appears inAnnex 2.When recruiting, do not mention the specific topic of your spots. Participantsshould not be biased about the topic before they join the focus group. Just say, “Wewant to get feedback on some radio ads and want to talk with someone like you.”Plan ahead for how you will recruit participants, so that you get people from avariety of sources. Try to use non-biased channels to recruit participants. Forexample, rather than rely only on village elders or health clinic staff forrecommendations, recruit some participants yourself by going door to door.Save the completed screening questionnaires for each focus group or interview. Theinformation they contain can help with the analysis of your results.How to pretest 7Invite your participants to a convenient neutral location. Be sure to provide food,beverages and other amenities if you are conducting a focus group. Try to avoidhaving other distractions nearby.7Used with permission from WHO, UNICEF HealthCOM (1994), “Using Radio Spots to Support NationalCDD Programmes,” p. 48.Spot On Malaria: Guide59