Arboriculture & Urban Forestry 44(6): November 2018 Focus groups Informed by the literature review, two focus groups were conducted with the aim of uncov- ering benefits and barriers to stewardship of trees—specifically young street trees in front of residential parcels. Two distinct groups were targeted: Group 1 was a “Tree Care Group,” in which people currently or had recently stew- arded trees; Group 2 was a “Non-Tree Care Group,” in which people had not recently or were not currently conducting such steward- ship, either at home or as part of volunteering or work. Holding separate focus groups allowed questions to be tailored for addressing moti- vations versus barriers in meaningful ways to participants. Further, participants who did not perform tree care could speak freely and not feel social pressure from those who had. The number of attendees ranged from 8 to 12, and focus groups were conducted largely in Spanish with semi-structured interview questions. Attendees were recruited by Tree- People’s regional manager for this community, herself a resident of Huntington Park. Care was taken to include attendees representative of the greater community: a mix of working- class men and women of varying ages, mostly of Latino descent. Most Group 1 attendees had a history of involvement with TreePeople, either as volunteers or educational workshop participants. Many attendees in Group 1 knew one another, whereas Group 2 attendees did not. The two focus groups were held at a com- munity recreation center on two consecutive Thursday evenings in October 2015. Focus groups were facilitated by bilingual anthro- pology students of California State University Northridge, an advanced graduate student in applied anthropology from California State University Long Beach, and TreePeople staff. Compensation to participants was of fered in the form of $25 gift cards to local restau- rants and markets. The themes discussed in each focus group are summarized in Table 1. Surveys Surveys informed by focus group findings were conducted door-to-door by youth vol- unteers from the community and while under 295 the supervision of TreePeople’s regional man- ager. Homes on streets with young trees in the parkways were targeted, and pre-notification postcards were sent to alert residents that a survey team would be visiting on a specific date. The survey was crafted to identify bar- riers to, and motivations for, caring for trees and assessed attitudes toward trees, barriers to caring for trees, yard infrastructure, current plant- and tree-care habits, and demograph- ics. Attitudes toward trees were measured by a series of eight statements (e.g., Having a tree in every yard is good for my neighborhood). Barriers to caring for trees were assessed by a series of 10 statements (e.g., Carrying a 20-L bucket of water would be difficult for me). For both sets of statements, respondents rated their level of agreement using a scale from 1 to 7 (where 1 means strongly disagree and 7 means strongly agree). Infrastructure and current plant- and tree-care behaviors were measured by asking if respondents had currently cared for plants or trees by mulch- ing, watering, or weeding (each asked sepa- rately), and if they had water hoses, the location of spigots, and the type of irrigation system in the yard. Lastly, respondents were asked about demographic classifications, such as age, educational attainment, number in household, home ownership, and income. A total of 88 households participated in the survey. Respondents who completed the survey were of fered a $10 gift card to a neighborhood store or restaurant. Sur- vey teams represented TreePeople; it is thus possible that responses were more favorable toward trees as a result. Results are shown in Figure 2 (Attitudes Toward Trees), Fig- ure 3 (Infrastructure for Watering), Figure 4 (Current Plant-Care Behaviors), Figure 5 (Barriers to Caring for a Tree), Figure 6 (Benefits to Caring for a Tree), and Figure 7 (Likelihood of Watering Their Tree). Addi- tionally, when asked if they currently had plants they took care of, 77% of respondents stated that they did. Those who answered yes were then asked if they used mulch or compost, to which 58.2% answered yes. ©2018 International Society of Arboriculture
November 2018
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