Benefits of Focus Group Research Essay

Focus groups are in-depth interviews undertaken with a group of about eight to twelve people. They involve interaction between the participants. The aim of focus group research is to learn and understand what people think about a topic at length and in detail.

This method is applicable to my study because it allows the group of students the freedom to share their experiences, understanding and beliefs of the topic being presented. Focus groups are an asset to my research design because these groups work best for topics people could talk about with one another in their daily lives but do not. Focus groups are not always appropriate for highly sensitive and personal topics to be shared with strangers. However, for the purposes of my research the racially sensitive issues will be open to discussion because the focus group will only have African American students (Merriam,

The qualitative research design applied in this study is the focus group interviewing. For this particular topic, survey research design was the most appropriate as it could help obtain the necessary data and information from respondents. Also, the National Institute against Prejudice and Violence used questionnaires to collect data and information in doing the research (Barnes &Ephross, 1994).

Facilitating focus groups, interviews, allowed us to strengthen our qualitative research skills. As an outsider, the qualitative process was the most enjoyable to me. I was able to learn their way of living, strengths and challenges of their community. The process of creating the pretest and posttest surveys collectively was a challenge, yet another beneficially learning experience. I realized effective surveys take time to develop and need to be reviewed by multiple people. Developing poorly constructed questionaries’ is highly possible if no one takes the time to actually

The TMDEOhio Focus Group will serve as an opportunity to bring a carefully selected segment of the target audience together for an interactive and spontaneous discussion about traumatic life events. Group face-to-face interviews will provide an opportunity to visualize members of our target audience’s body language, facial expressions and tone of voice when sharing personal life experiences in a group setting.

Flexible and inexpensive, focus groups consist of six to ten participants (Hartman, 2004, p. 408). Additionally, a moderator guides the discussion among its panel members that allows researchers to observe real-time verbal responses and nonverbal cues (Hartman, 2004, p. 402; Cooper & Schindler, 2014, p. 160). Focus groups moderators also have the ability to introduce new ideas to gain a greater understanding of concerns from respondents (Hartman, 2004, p. 402). However, a concern with focus group is the lack of anonymity due to the face-to-face participation.

There were 10 different single-sex focus groups with 6 participants in each group. The groups were set up this way to enhance understanding of the topic and to promote communication within the group. This study clearly defines the roles of researchers in data collection and analysis of the data. The focus groups were 45 minute sessions with two undergrad senior students conducting the group. One student was in charge of using the topic guide to start the discussion, and the other student recording the events of the discussion. The phenomenon under study took place in two different settings. College students met within their institution and students from universities met off-campus. The data obtained in this study were analyzed appropriately. The researchers in the study used a Framework Analysis Approach. In this approach, 2 coders independently separated data into key themes and subthemes. Differences in interpretation of the data were discussed between the two coders. Goundry et. all\ (2013) stated, “a third researcher was available in case of disparities, but none were noted.” During the analytic phase of the study no biases were

This article represents a focus group type of qualitative research. According to Qualitative Research Consultants Association (2015), in focus group qualitative research, a group of individuals who share a need, life circumstance, or habit relevant to the research issue(s) at hand are led in a discussion by a modulator. The focus group discussions often include between two to ten respondents, and are often held face to face. They can also be conducted remotely through videoconferencing, teleconferencing, or

In order to gather a lot of data, a focus group is recommended. According to Howitt D. (2013), an optimal focus group consists of six to ten participants (Howitt, 2013; Morgan, 1997). The fact that an experienced interviewer conducted the interview led to good control and desired data(Morgan, 1996). Furthermore, a thematic analysis provided a systematic overview of the results.

Sharing circle and focus group discussions are similar in that they are commonly used in qualitative research to explore and construct knowledge about a phenomenon with research participants in small groups (Redman-MacLaren, Mills, and Tommbe 2014). Also, both methods can be used to explore experiences surrounding a particular topic within a group of various cultures (Tobias and Richmond 2016). The choice between focus group and sharing circles largely depends on the epistemological position of the researcher, the context, and the study population (Redman-MacLaren, Mills, and Tommbe 2014).

Some of the barriers that the participants discussed were language and being afraid (Olsson and Lau, 2015). This could have been viewed as discrimination and may have caused psychological distress while discussing in a group setting. Another risk is that focus groups do not allow everyone’s voices to be heard, therefore, it may cause additional distress to those individuals who are not confident enough to speak up and let their concerns be heard.

Have your attitudes toward education changed as a result of attending school while living with a chronic condition?

Each interview and focus group audio was transcribed within 24 hours by a research assistant. Data analysis was conducted using the Statistical package for social science to analyze the data set collected from the

A Focus group is defined as a research technique that collects data through a group interaction, on a given topic from the researcher. Along with this definition are some essential components. Firstly, it states that, focus groups are research methods devoted to data collection. Secondly, it signifies the interaction of group discussion as a source of data. Lastly, it acknowledges the active role of researchers in establishing the group discussion in order to collect data (David, 1996.p.130).

Carson et al (2001, p.114) refers to focus groups as “A research technique that collects data through group interaction on a topic or topics”. They also suggest that the central distinctive characteristic of focus groups is group interaction, which generates a mass of data, which would be