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.
The reason why focus group method is used is that group processes can help people to explore and clarify their views in ways that would be less easily accessible in a one to one interview. Group discussion is mainly appropriate when the interviewer has a series of open ended questions and wishes to encourage research participants to explore the issues of importance to them, in their own terms, generating their own questions and focusing on their own priorities. Often when the group dynamics work well the participants work together with the researcher, taking the research in new and often unexpected directions.
Group work also helps researchers tap into the many different forms of communication that people use in day to day interaction. Having
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
Hello, my name is Lenora Lubega and I would like to welcome all of you to our focus discussion group. I will be the moderator.
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 purpose of this focus group is to gather information about what important information about what topics should be included in a community education series about frailty and the interventions to reducing frailty risk.
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.
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.
The focus group questions will be descriptive in nature. This type of questioning is used to help establish rapport, and get the perspective of the stakeholders on how they see the problem. . According to Spradley (1979) building rapport means that a basic sense of trust has developed that allows for the free flow of information.
Focus group is a group interview. The group is made up of people with the same characteristics and ask them questions about something or someone. The response they give will be recorded and use as reference when making a decision.
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).
This is an interview that focuses on a particular topic, issue, product or service amongst a group of participants who have common characteristics that relate to the topic. The participants are encouraged to discuss the topic at length and while giving their opinions in order to reach a conclusion by the time the interview process is over. These discussions are carried out several times with the same participants so that trends and patterns can be identified when data is being analysed.
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
During a focus group, there are different ways in which the research can be conducted. For example, the most standard way of conducting a focus group is through interview questions. During a study about communication through music, the researcher could ask questions such as what genres to the participants listen to? And how does their choice of music
First is focus group method, focus group is defined as a group of individuals providing information in a structured format. A moderator leads the group of about 8 to 14 participants through an open, in-depth discussion rather than simply asking questions to solicit participants’ responses. The group is stimulated by comments from other group members in creatively conceptualizing and developing a new