It has been decided to focus on to explain on a personal experience whereby focus groups produced positive or negative information hence anticipated as of other types of research. The importance of Focus groups providing better, or worse, information this is highlighted by Pitt-Catsouphes et al, 2006 (p.365) who states that focus groups “offers the advantage of creating inductive insight, and these insights can then be later used in the development of quantitatively instruments such as surveys”, Duarte et al, (2006, pg.202) adds that researchers may still disagree on the members emphasis.
Four main aspects Focus groups will be discussed. First, a personal experienced researched focus group conducted in a lecture. Following that, the
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Experience has shown that smaller groups may be dominated by one or two members of the group, while larger groups are difficult to manage and inhibit participation by all members of the group”.
This definition could also be supported by Morgan 1997 (p.2) who mentions that “focus groups are basically group interviewers, although not in the sense of an alternation between a researcher’s questions and the researcher participant’s responses. Instead, the reliance is on interaction within the group, based on topics that are supplied by the researcher who typically takes the role of the moderator”.
A focus group discussion was conduct in our lecture whereby the moderator was testing the public (students) opinion on a more intimate level toward a sum of different members of Parliament. I would like to clarify that this was not a classic focus group but a practical one. As it was not a classical one, the information which was delivered was quite true and some were not of serious however more of a mockery. There were positive as well as negative. The positive one was that people where open to express they opinions which were intimate freely, everyone came up with different opinion that was accurate and the rest of the group seemed to have agreed on, the group was not undecided.
As for the
A focus group can be defined as a group interview- centered on a specific topic and facilitated and co-ordinated by a moderator or facilitator- which seeks to generate primarily qualitative data, by capitalizing on the interaction that occurs within the group setting. The idea behind the focus group method is that group processes can help people to explore and clarify their views in ways that be less easily accessible in a one to one interview. While the focus group opens up exciting analytical possibilities, it also gives rise to a number of potentially problematic issues in this respect.
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
Thank you for your participation. Your participation is voluntary and the statements made in the focus group interview have no relationship to or influence on your current or future study or your work and responsibilities. Your participation in this study will be kept confidential by the researcher.
If we could do this focus group again, we would try and include a larger collection of participants. This improvement would allow us to hear more insights, and give our group a wider variety of responses. A smaller-sized group may be more personal, but doesn’t offer as much depth as a slightly larger size.
When group dynamics work well, the partakers work together with the researcher, taking the investigation in new and frequently unanticipated directions. They are also good for giving a lot of the participants the courage to speak, especially for those who may not feel confident enough to speak in a one – to – one interview (Kitzinger, 1995). However, focus group methodology has its limits. The focus collection depends heavily on supported discussion to harvest results; therefore, the enablement of the dialogue is critical. The worth of the discussion rests upon the skill of the mediator, who should be well qualified and preferably distant from the target populace, yet not linked with the researchers (Leung and Savithiri 2009). From the groups, words and expressions were extracted for coding into groups of meaning and themes were then
The semi-structured focus group interview is a qualitative study, which goes for discovering what other individuals feel and think about the marvel which is explored (Rubin and Babbie, 1993:12). It speaks to a purposive open discussion where the researcher makes inquiries on a particular point where every member makes remarks. The researcher presents the subject and afterwards manages the discourse by the method for addressing. The researcher records both verbal and non-verbal correspondence from the participants. The semi-structured focus group interviews help the researcher to identify that communication improves information quality, governing rules on each other and a straightforward appraisal of cooperative energy and/or contrasts between participants (McMillan and Schumacher, 1993:157).
Focus groups: Focus group refers a form of qualitative research that a group of people are asked about their perceptions, opinions, beliefs, etc.
Focus group is an increasingly common research tool used to obtain the options, values and beliefs from an identifiable group using a facilitated interview technique.
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
In this case, Focus group research method can be an effective research tool for analyzing consumer needs and problems. A focus group asks participants for open-ended responses conveying thoughts or feelings. Within a focus group, a moderator poses a series of questions intended to gain insight into the way the group views the brand, product and related images, slogans, concepts or symbols. Focus group can offer insights consistent with those shared by the broader target market.
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
One of the essential techniques of conducting a qualitative research is focus group. It consists of participants that should be representative of a local population. While qualitative research does not focus on precision, it does ensure richness of the researched topic. This paper will explore the benefit of a focus group as a means to research the topic presented to
There are advantages and disadvantages to using focus groups. Advantages are that focus groups can be used to collect in-depth information about delicate subject matters in the efforts to develop health services, health interventions, or to improve care. Focus groups can also encourage participants that would be silent to voice their opinions. Another advantage of focus groups leads to some “hidden” or “unexpected” information that may be very valuable and have major implications for developing health programs that are appropriate to the target population (Focus Groups, pg. 91). Disadvantages of focus groups include: 1) prevalence cannot be stated; focus groups give details about the variety of views only and 2) since focus groups use a
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 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. Focus group is excellent for providing ‘rich’ information.