Our travel and tourism study suggested that many people come to Texarkana to visit friends and relatives.  It is possible that these visitors do not spend a lot of money while in Texarkana; we really do not know what these visitors do when they are visiting, where they spend their money, or what kind of entertainment or recreational activities might be of interest to these visitors.

One possible way to explore this issue is to interview Texarkana residents who have recently been visited by out-of-town friends, relatives, or acquaintances.  These Texarkana residents could be asked about the reasons for visits, the length of stay, where the visitor stayed, and such.  Of greater interest, however, would be an exploration into what the visitors do for recreation and entertainment while visiting, and what is not offered by Texarkana that they would like to do.  At this point in the process, we are not interested in designing the entire research study, but are merely interested in how we would recruit a sample of people to interview.

Write a screener to use in recruiting Texarkana residents who have recently been visited by out-of-town friends, relatives, or aquaintences.  Some specific issues in recruiting are as follows:

• We would like a sample of at least 48 Texarkana-area residents (six focus group sessions of eight people).

• We want to recruit one extra person per session to make up for possible no-shows (recruit 54).

• Of the 54 recruits, we would like 40 to be residents in the postal areas of
  • Texarkana, AR (zip code 71854),
  • Texarkana, TX (75501, 75502, 75503, 75504, 75505, 75507),
  • Wake Village, TX (75501),
  • Nash, TX (75569)
  • Mount Pleasant, TX (75455). 

• We would like the remaining 14 recruits to be residents in the postal areas of:
  • Ashdown, AR (71822)
  • Atlanta, TX (75551)
  • Boston, TX (75557)
  • DeKalb, TX (75559)
  • Douglassville, TX (75560)
  • Fouke, AR (71837)
  • Fulton, AR (71838)
  • Garland City, AR (71839)
  • Hooks, TX (75561)
  • Linden, TX (75563)
  • Maud, TX (75567)
  • New Boston, TX (75570)
  • Redwater, TX (75573)
  • Simms, TX (75574)

• The recruit must have been visited by an out-of-town friend, relative, or acquaintance at least once within the past one year.

• The recruit would be paid $50 for a one-hour session.  (Each focus group session would run about 45 or 50 minutes.)

A screener should include the following where possible:

• The study number.
• The client organization.
• The client's name, address, phone number, fax number.
• The cities from which you will be recruiting.
• The interview session date and time for which you are recruiting.
• Who you are recruiting.
• How many you are recruiting.
• The length of the interview.
• The topic of the interview: be sure that it sounds interesting to the prospective recruit, but don't provide any more details than are necessary.

Anything not to be read on the phone should be put in bold and capital letters.

The following examples might be helpful:

• http://roo.tamut.edu/~bowen/courses/AU03/mkt_res/K9_screener.doc (class example)
• http://216.247.170.64/pf/Surveys/Focus_Groups/2000/3856scr.pdf
• http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/people/injury/drowsy_driving1/listening/AppendixA.htm
• http://iat.ubalt.edu/courses/old/writ313.101_Sp02/screenerGloss.pdf
• http://www.dot.wisconsin.gov/library/research/docs/finalreports/02-10phase3-f.pdf (See Appendix A, page 82 for the screener; this is a large document that would take a long time to download on a modem.)