Focus Group Observation Paper

The focus group interviews were located in a classroom in Rowland Hall, on the campus of the University of California, Irvine. There were four students and a moderator in an empty classroom. They were strategically placed in a circle, so the participants could all see each other. The students being seated in a circle made it the prime environment for open dialogue. This particular classroom was chosen because it was convenient to all the participants in the study due to its proximity to the classes on campus. The classroom was very quiet and there were no interruptions while the focus group interviews were in session. The time was not shown so the participants could not be distracted and they can focus on the questions being asked. The only

Focus groups: Discussion of selected members (a mix of parents, teachers, academicians and psychologist) in a focus group will help the company gain insight about what the customers are think and how they perceive the product (Kotler, 2000). This will also help in identifying any gaps between the product presently available in the

There is a criterion that has been designed towards showing that the technical communication was delivering the intended message. One factor to focus upon was the outcome of the communication process. The result is expected to be positive and result into unity achieved by the groups represented within the audience. Focus groups also involve face to face communication which gives room for discussion and also coming into an agreement. Focus groups allow both the audience and the speaker to engage in an interactive and thus allowing them to come into a common boat of thoughts. The audience may also be divided into their specifics groups and their issues addressed accordingly. This technical communication will therefore ensure the communication reaches all the targeted audience and therefore termed as effective (Rajendra,

Furthermore, it provides data of a broad scope of experiences in a short time span. The particular mechanisms of a focus group can open discussions and issues that would other wise not be brought up in other methods, such as interviews. A focus group is advantageous as both the content and the interactions in the group can be used as data in the analysis. For content it gives a variety of opinions and provides analysis of similarities and differences that are discussed, as well as immediate discussion material where one can go deeper into the reasons for these differences.

Since our focus group was later at night and with working professionals we had to plan our timing adequately. This allowed us to have a better grasp on the amount of information that we thought would be beneficial for our report and how long each respondents answer should be. Also, it helped to keep the moderator and secretary on the same page. During the discussion, it was important as a moderator to keep everyone talking. Some people just naturally talked more and had more to say about a subject and they were more open to answering questions then other. On the other hand, some people did not have as much experience so they were more shy and did not expand their answers

At the simplest level, a focus group is an informal discussion among a group of selected individuals about a particular topic (Wilkinson 2004). A focus group is a form of qualitative research in which a group of people are asked about their perceptions, opinions, beliefs, and attitudes towards a product, service, concept, advertisement, idea, or packaging. Questions are asked in an interactive group setting where participants are free to talk with other group members. One of the key defining features of focus groups is that it is a group of interacting individuals having some common interest or characteristics, brought together by a moderator, who uses the group and its interaction as a way to gain information about a specific or focused issue.

In order to understand how this method can be used in this study, then it first must be explained. According to the text, Making Sense of the Social World, focus groups are considered as, “a qualitative method that involves unstructured group interviews in which the focus group leader actively encourages discussion among participants on the topics of interest” (Chambliss & Schutt, 2016, p. 220). Often times young adults are more open when around others of their own age, this is the main reason I selected this method because an at-risk youth is going to be more comfortable answering questions and sharing their opinions when around a group that shares similar characteristics or life situations compared to just a one-on-one conversation between them and a researcher or amongst strangers. However, with this method there are also strengths and weaknesses when using this method. The major strengths to focus groups are: they can save time and money compared to other methods, they provide participants the opportunity to explain their viewpoints, it allows for participants to be more open and give clarification on their personal and group perceptions, and they provide for a broad range of information and data to be collected from the sample. The disadvantages to focus groups are: they are hard to manage among a large group, there can be disagreements or unnecessary conversations among participants that might take away from the main questions being asked, and not everyone might what to participate or feel intimidated. Not only are their strengths and weaknesses, but also there is also ethical concerns because it is an open group setting compared to other methods. Therefore, the main ethical concern with focus groups is that a researcher has disclosed participants’ identities to each other, which can be a concern particularly if there are sensitive topics being discussed among one

Qualitative research is common among healthcare researchers nowadays by the numbers of published papers in health literature. Instruments used for qualitative data collection include interviews, observations, and analysis of documents. Interviews are the most common techniques in health care to gather research information. Focus group interviews are the appropriate tool to be used of being more time efficient as more people can be interviewed for the same amount of time. They also provide a richer source of data. On the other hand, focus group interviews tend to document the ‘public’ rather than the ‘private’ views of the individuals (Grbich

Two focus groups will be conducted, with openness to initiating a third and fourth focus group if needed based upon the information generated in the first two focus groups. The first two groups generally provide new information, but by the third focus group, there may be redundancy, therefore eliminating the need for a fourth group (Krueger, 1988). A series of open-ended

Focus groups and surveys are particularly useful in gathering information on how a vast group of people feel about a particular service or product. “The method is particularly useful for exploring people 's knowledge and experiences and can be used to examine not only what people think but how they think and why they think that way” (Kitzinger, 1995, pp. 299). Along with giving insight into those feelings, this method can help to improve the design or implementation of how that product or service is perceived by the public. In general, focus groups are composed of five to ten individuals with similar characteristics relating to the topic of interest. Focus groups can give insightful data on the participants being interviewed; however,

Focus groups are a form of group interview that make use of the communication between research participants in order to produce data. Group interviews are mostly used as a quick and easy way to collect data from several people at the same time and focus groups explicitly use group interaction as part of the method. This means that the researcher doesn’t just ask each person to respond to a question in turn, but people are encouraged to talk to one another: asking questions, exchanging stories and commenting on each other's experiences and points of view. The method is mainly useful for exploring people's knowledge and experiences and can be used to study not only what people think but how they think and why they think that way.

Focus groups have been renowned for its inherently complex data analysis. It requires an experienced researcher to identify the themes that have emerged throughout the discussions, to ensure no bias tailoring has been made to support theoretical assumptions.

The three focus groups will allow people to feel empowered and express their opinions freely, and participants will be able to query one another and explain their answers amongst the group. (Neuman et al, 2012) They will be held in three different locations throughout the city and three different research team members will facilitate based on their personality traits, and a pretest will be employed prior to the sessions. (Masadeh, 2012) The focus groups will host a diverse group of individual volunteers and will be advertised throughout Toronto and in varying institutions, workplaces, and hubs to ensure this. This group will comprise six to twelve people, depending on the response rate. Focus groups can have limitations such as: the possibility if groupthink, existing polarization effects, the effects of the moderator, time consuming and few topics can be

Participants of a focus group are not selected at random, but rather have the capability to offer different perception in the question posed (Schneider, Kerwin, Frechtling and Vivari, 2002). Although there is no recommended group size, but smaller groups may confine the analysis. Hence, Mazza and Berre (2007) has suggested groups of six to nine cross-selected stakeholders is the ideal size for researchers to extract several useful ideas at once.

1. Let’s say you have developed a new, all natural granola style cereal. You want to see the reaction of a range of people to the product, so you decide to set up focus groups to sample the cereal. In one to two pages (single spaced), describe how you would carry out a focus group review of the cereal.