Moderating children's focus groups is a specialty I've come to believe over the years moderating groups of both children and adults.  At first I thought it just had different rules and alternatives, but the more I have moderated children's focus groups, the more I see that to get really great results, you cannot just depend on the quality of the respondents.  

The tempo and expectations are much different moderating focus groups for children so it's possible to improve each group's potential with various types of games and play which provide rich results.  With Mattel as a prominent client, along with Disney, Zenith Media, Disney Online, Wal-Mart, All In Moderation has had the opportunity to work with great clients who understand and continue to pursue the best practices in children's qualitative research. Here are my top ten tips for children's focus group moderating:
  • Work with small groups of no more than 5 or 6 children at a time;
  • Keep the group to 45 minutes; an hour max;
  • Don't mix genders if you can help it and definitely not between the ages of 10 and 18;
  • Children need to be the same age and within one grade of each other in the same group.  Between the ages of 5 and 7, respondents' ages should be within 6 months of each other;
  • Do not try to evaluate more than 5 concepts during this time;
  • Don't spend more than a minute or two with initial reactions before moving on.  Plan to return to your concepts from different points-of-view changing the exercises frequently;
  • Take "secret votes" if needing to seriously see where children stand on on something;
Choose a moderator who is experienced working with children and teens.  Your moderator should be out in the waiting room talking to the recruited children and picking your group.  Don't settle for short answers and unthoughtful responses from children.  Moderating children's focus groups can be a lot of fun when you have great kids and  your moderator will know which children and which mix will be best for the group along with profile information from the screener.