Focus groups were used previous to World War II but, did not become common among marketers until the 1950`s. In the 1980`s focus groups were rediscovered by social scientists and called them “group interviews” but, the concept remains the same. Popular culture was introduced into popular culture in the 1990`s with President Clinton using them for his research teams. During the origins of focus groups 6-10 participants were included who focused on the effects of television programming, film, product consumption and advertising, and public understanding of health issues. Understanding the motivation of the participants was often sought after by researchers. In 1937 focus groups started at the Princeton University of Radio Research. …show more content…
This type of study aids in the development of new company products, logos, and advertising slogans with insight into what the public wants.
The focus group of a study includes a group of people that is diverse demographically. These participants are guided in a discussion about a specific product, political campaign, television series, etc. to gauge the general reaction of the public. As a form of qualitative research the focus group involves the participants answering questions pertaining to their perceptions, beliefs, attitudes, and opinions towards the targeted product, concept, advertisement, idea, packaging, or service. Participants are questioned in a interactive group environment where they are given the opportunity to discuss their opinions with other group members. Originally focus groups were labelled as “group depth interviews” or “focused interviews”. After World War II this technique was developed to allow a platform for evaluating audience response of radio programs. Since that time period, program evaluators and social scientists have determined focus groups to be beneficial on understanding the means for how and why people hold specific beliefs about a program or topic of interest. Focus groups primarily include 7-10 individual participants who are completely unfamiliar with one another. Generally focus groups strive to include participants due to characteristics in common that apply to the
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.
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
Eight to fifteenth participants were in attendance at each focus group. At the start of each focus group participants began by completing a general survey about their socio-demographic, finances, health and wellbeing. A researcher facilitated a series of questions and two UCLA team members took notes and recorded each group. The questions (appendix a) covered topics from overall health, nutrition, budget, savings, debt, and financial security. All the information then was transcribed and analyzed by the UCLA team members. The 3 Spanish focus group was transcribed and interpreted by an outside vendor. While the English focus an UCLA team member transcribed group.
This paper introduces focus group methodology, gives advice on group composition, running the groups, and analysing the results. Focus groups have advantages for researchers in the field of health and medicine: they do not discriminate against people who cannot read or write and they can encourage participation from people reluctant to be interviewed on their own or who feel they have nothing to say.
Within a focus group, participants often debate and question each other’s viewpoint – which is important for this research study as one will be able to see biases and whether specific factors drive viewpoints. While considering the advantages of a focus group, one must also take into account the disadvantages of a focus group, which include: the amount of time it takes to organize; the amount of time it takes to record and transcribe the session; the likelihood for participants to interrupt each other; the possibility of having a number of participants being more assertive and dominant than others; more potential of discomfort; and finally the cost of conducting a focus group (Bryman,
I encouraged all participants to speak naturally and honestly. The focus groups were recorded and some brief notes were made to note any particularly important details but without disengaging from the focus group. The focus groups were structured, with several key questions that were asked to the participants, however these key questions were very general, which was the same approach used by Schlesinger et al. (1992). This allowed for the two focus groups responses to be compared, as without this structure the two focus groups could have discussed very different topics and been difficult to analyse (Bryman, 2012). The broad natured questions allowed for in-depth discussions to take place between the participants in the focus groups, and when an interesting point arose, the questions were altered to gain more information in addition to preventing the respondents from repeating themselves. A copy of the focus group topic guide can be found in Appendix 2.
Focus groups are a method of group interviewing in which the interaction between the moderator and the group, as well as the interaction between group members, serves to elicit information and insights in response to carefully designed questions. The dynamic nature of the questions asked by the moderator and the group process, produces a level of insight that is rarely derived from 'unidirectional ' information collection devises such as observation, surveys and less interactional interview techniques. Methods of recording and analyzing information gathered during focus groups, and strategies for collecting unbiased information have helped focus group research to gain
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
There is no lack of definitions about what focus group actually is. As Vaughn and colleagues (1996) mentioned (as cited in Claudia & Jonathan, 2004), there are two main characteristics of focus group: a well prepared agenda and questions with a professional moderator and to obtain the perceptions, feelings and opinions of participants appointed topic. Wilkinson (2004) also gave a simple definition on it (as cited in Pranee, 2011), “a focus group is an informal discuss among a group of selected individuals about a particular topic”. However, it is easy to mix up focus groups
As the aim of the research is to identify the relationship between the CSR and the brand trust, focus group would be the most appropriate approach to collect a diverse range of individuals’ opinions in a short time (Rabiee, 2007). Moreover, Focus group would encourage participants to communicate with each other, which would generate more data which cannot be collected by one-to-one depth interview, this could be termed as "the group effect" (Carey & Smith 1994). Morgan & Krueger (1993) also point out that focus group would observe the participants’ attitude about the social problems.
Finally, focus groups provide in-depth data. They are a good way to involve the target group in the research process in a more intimate way. Researchers can observe the group while they are having dialogue to gauge authenticity. This tool also allows the researcher to use visual stimuli to interact with its target. However, this tool is not the most efficient way to gather information. As with most of the tools mentioned, it is time consuming. Therefore, not scientific. Focus groups can produce obscure results if they are not strictly moderated. Additionally, they often must be incentivized for participation.
Focus groups are a form of qualitative research. This allows an interactive group setting discuss their opinions, perceptions and beliefs towards a certain subject. It is a quick and easy way to gain sample size results from an open
Another key distinction and justification for using focus groups is that they enable interaction and trust, exploring solutions to particular problems as a unit, which would be less accessible with other research methods such as questionnaires (Gill et al., 2008). However, as illustrated in Chapter 2, many academics suggest millennials enjoy socialisation. It could, therefore, be argued that there is potential for bias in a group setting within the criteria of the participants in this study. Nevertheless, as the intended research focuses on psychology, primarily buyer behaviour and visual communication analysis, qualitative research is the common method