The number of educational research studies involving pupils is increasing. Most studies are with pupils in a specific age group or concentrate on certain categories, such as special needs or the gifted and talented. However there have been few studies that involve pupils in the middle ability range of Key Stage 3. A research study into target setting (Dagley, 2003) sets out to identify and involve some of these "middle" pupils. This article describes how this was done and discusses issues in relation to the definition of "average" from the perspective of the pupils and the researcher. (Contains 1 note and 3 tables.)