Food Protection Trends - September/October 2020 - 338

TABLE 3. Pre-campaign vs. post-campaign sample demographic characteristics (cont.)
Percent (%) of total respondents
Characteristics

Pre-campaign (305 respondents)

Post-campaign (305 respondents)

60
36
6
2

62
32
5
3

14
18
4
17
27
20

13
24
4
14
25
20

9
12
20
34
25

10
15
19
26
30

Race
White/Caucasian
Black/African-American
American Indian/Alaskan
Other
Education Level
High school or less
Some college
Trade/Technical
Associate's degree
Bachelor's degree
Post graduate degree
Household Income
Under $25,000
$25,000 - $39,999
$40,000 - $59,999
$60,000 - $100,000
Over $100,000

contractor then compared the pre- vs. post-campaign
responses to detect changes in attitudes, beliefs, and
behaviors regarding food safety, using paired t-tests. When
dealing with self-reported behaviors and perceptions during
phone calls, as for the present study, participants had the
opportunity to lie to the interviewers and/or to provide
responses that were untrue. Since it was not possible to
determine with any degree of certainty which responses were
true or untrue, all responses were coded and analyzed as
being true.
Part 2. Campaign evaluation - focus groups
After the "160° is Good" campaign concluded and all
phone survey data had been collected, focus groups were
assembled in the Fall of 2017 to gather more in-depth information on perceptions, attitudes, and self-reported behavior
changes, as well as to gain insight into message content and
quality. Although focus groups can be conducted prior to
campaign development, the "160° is Good" campaign was
seen as a pilot study for a larger food safety campaign under
development that will be national in scope, and for this purpose conducting focus groups post-campaign was useful for

338

Food Protection Trends September/October

gleaning research insights that were not uncovered during the
standard telephone interviews. The objectives, methods, and
justification for this research were reviewed and approved
by the North Carolina State University Institutional Review
Board (IRB) Protocol #12341. Focus groups were recruited
and conducted essentially as described (20). Six focus groups
were conducted because 90% of all themes are discoverable
within three to six focus groups (11). Focus groups are composed of four to twelve people, and meetings are conducted
in varying locations to minimize any influence by internal
and external factors and because participants would unlikely
be unfamiliar with one another (17). The current research
is rooted in interpretive and constructivist epistemological
perspectives to provide description, understanding, and
interpretation of the perceptions of consumers related to
the "160° is Good" campaign. Epistemological perspectives
provide framework for describing and analyzing the varying
views and information rooted in qualitative research that
derive from the four primary epistemological perspectives
identified in research: (i) philosophical analysis, the nature
of knowledge, and how it relates to truth, belief, and justification, (ii) issues related to skepticism, (iii) nature, scope, and
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