• Differing reasons for responding to the questionnaire can lead to data inaccuracies, for example some respondents might see your topic in a very positive light, whereas some may be against it.
Application to the case study
A street questionnaire about coffee preferences on Jackson Street might yield useful data, particularly if participants are rewarded with a chocolate fish. After having surveyed the amount of foot traffic in Jackson Street during normal business hours, this method might then help to answer our second objective “2. To find out if the quantity of foot traffic will translate into a profitable income for a new coffee shop.” An example of a questionnaire that Potential Traders Ltd could use in this research project is:
Focus Groups
Definition
“A focus group is a common qualitative research method used by companies for marketing purposes. A focus group typically consists of a small number of participants, usually around six to twelve, from within a company 's target market. The consumers are brought together and led through discussions of important company and brand topics by a moderator.” (SmallBusiness, n.d.) Researchers will usually design the focus group based on the research question. There are four main characteristics researchers consider when designing focus groups:
1. The level of moderator control- Depending on the topic and the participants the moderator may be highly involved in the discussion, or they may have virtually no involvement and
The focus group (a less formal forum) included a medical doctor, two residents, two community members, two family members of the residents, nurses, director of nursing, the administrator, a member of the board of the directors, an IT specialist and human resource personnel. A focus group is a specialized group interview in which group members are not told exactly what the interviewer wants to
Tim’s Coffee Shop is a small coffee shop which is in Sunnydale, Illinois. The building is in the middle of the city, so will be able to attract more consumers. The vision of the Tim’s Coffee Shop is to be ‘Establish Tim’s one of the best coffee shop experience, it will do this by focusing on providing quality, service, and value to all its customers’. The shop needs to focus on different aspects such as financial aspect, human resource, and marketing aspect to conduct its business effectively and efficiently.
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.
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.
Focus groups can be an excellent way to collect data and be able to identify if the interventions have an effect on the clients (Stringer, 2007). I’m interested
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.
My focus group will be highschool and college students with an emphasis on those who are in the junior class of both institutions. I will take a small sample of each student group and the educators who are responsible for them. I initially
Focus group: a small interview of people who are brought together to discuss a particular topic.
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
Jemma, the researcher and focus group moderator, has structured the discussion in the following way: to start with, Jemma provides a frame of reference for the focus group referring to the aim of her research, and summarizes the pre-formulated research questions that serve as openings to obtain such feedback (Nel, Romm, & Tlale, 2015). Focus groups are seen as providing a unique data source, and tend to emphasise their value in exploring participants’ knowledge and experiences and in helping to understand not only what people think, but also why they think the way they do (Greenwood, Ellmers, & Holley, 2014).
The researcher felt that was the nature of focus group but to a larger degree a behavior of human nature, especially in groups where the participants know each other and work together. Therefore to head off a loss of control of the groups the participants were asked to rate topics that were popular in similar focus groups (Levy, Mandell and Schultz 2009; Pellicano et al. 2014). The strategy was used to integrate the topics into the focus groups that participants
Although Berg and Lune (2012) cite Barbour (2008) who states that focus groups are small groups of unrelated individuals, I personally tend to side with Schein who states, "If you want to access your organization's culture, bring together a group of employees who represent the parts of the organization that may be most involved with solving the business problem...” (2009, p. 82). By its very term, a focus group focuses on something. I believe that in ethnographic studies, the "something” is the culture or microculture which relates the participants to each other. Focus groups allow the researcher to obtain large amounts of data in a short amount of time. With a good moderator of the focus group, the researcher should be able to discover
Moreover, Alan Bryman (2001) in Haralambos, & Holborn, ( 2008), defines a focus group as: a form of group interview in which: there are several participants (in addition to the facilitator); there is an emphasis in the questioning on a tightly defined topic, and the accent is on interaction within the group and the joint construction of meaning.
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