How to carry out focus groups, ethical considerations and design principles

1. Doing Focus Groups

2. Introducing Focus Groups
Generating Data
Underpinnings of Focus Group Research
Research Design
Planning and Running Focus Groups
Ethics and Engagement

3. Introducing Focus Groups

4. • Many sectors in the research community use focus
groups
• Broadcasting, marketing and public relations
• Organisational research and development
• Community development and participatory approaches
• Health Services and Social Science research

5. • Not used in the same way by each group
Framework
Use
Group
Work
Client/
Interviewee
Relationship
Many
More…

6. • Can be brutal for your self-esteem
This is the worst
thing I’ve ever seen!
I’d never be able to
use that!
LOUD NOISES!

7. Accessing Narratives
Shouldn’t be used for

8. Accessing Attitudes
Shouldn’t be used for
Attitudes are performed not pre-formed

9. Access hard to reach groups
Can be used to

10. Focus groups can be carried out more quickly and
more cheaply than other methods!
nope…sorry.
1. Travel
2. Room Hire
3. Refreshments
4. Transcription
5. Telephoning Time
6. Logistics of group composition and
participant availability

11. Great for answering difficult “why-not” questions
?
Why do you not go to the dentist
every 6 months?
Immunisation Behaviour
Smoking whilst Pregnant
Asthma Management

12. Great for getting feedback on questionnaires early
within a research study!

13. Underpinnings of Focus Group Research

14. Focus groups excel at providing insights into
process rather than outcome

15. Focus groups excel at providing insights into
process rather than outcome
We can look at how attitudes are formed and
how views are formed and modified

16. Focus groups excel at providing insights into
process rather than outcome
We can look at how attitudes are formed and
how views are formed and modified
Illuminates the insiders perspective

17. People lie.

18. “We will never know what respondents might have
revealed in the ‘privacy’ of an in-depth interview but
we do know what they were prepared to elaborate
and defend in the company of their peers.”

19. • Focus groups are not the time-pressed researchers
substitute for ethnographic field work
• Should be used as a mainstream method to address
topics in groups which are less open to observational
methods

20. • Should be used to to document the processes through
which group norms and meanings are shaped,
elaborated, and applied.

21. Research Design

22. Focus Group Interviewor
More
comfortable
talking 1-to-1
Safety in
numbers
approach

23. What’s your setting?

24. • There’s no such thing as a neutral setting for a
focus group.
• It is important to anticipate the effect of
different locations on the content of the data
generated

25. Who’s your facilitator?

26. • It is important to acquire background information about
the group being studies, either through preliminary
fieldwork or by accessing the knowledge held by local
organisations

27. Using a Gatekeeper

28. • Try to be created regarding potential recruitment sources
bet be alert to the emphasis and gaps in coverage that
may result from involving gatekeepers in recruitment of
your sample
• There are positives and negatives to using both
top-down and bottom-up approaches

29. How many focus
groups should you
run? 2+

30. How many people
in each group? 3-12

31. Planning and Running Focus Groups

33. • Visit your venue in advance
• Refreshments?
• What sorts of foods
• Will anything influence people?
• Is 1 room enough
• If not, is 1 facilitator enough?

34. Recording and
Transcribing
• What sort of things can you use to record your data? How
advanced do you want to go?

35. Transcribe your
sessions yourself!
• Best way for you to learn about the data
• …but you will find this very boring!
• Lots of tools out there to help you do this
• Amazingly…YouTube caption engine is one of the
easiest!

36. Starting your Focus
Groups
• Introduce yourself
• Give the purpose of the session (briefing)
• Do ethics forms
• Let participants introduce each other

37. Managing Difficult
Situations

38. Developing a Topic
Guide
• Developing your questions is only the first part
• Also want to look at developing follow on
items
x
a
b
y
z
c
d

39. Thinking about
question order
• Start with non-threatning (easy) questions and
build up to sensitive ones
• Semi-structured approach is good, but you’ll
need to know a lot about the topic yourself

40. Stimulus Material
• Useful in breaking the ice and injecting humour
• Can stimulate discussion
• Can afford comparisons across groups

41. Ethics and Engagement

42. • Give careful consideration to the reasons
participants may have for taking part in your
study and be as open as possible regarding
implications for them as individuals and the
outcome of the project

43. • Try to anticipate potential difficulties and be
as clear as possible about the role of
boundaries

44. • Debrief is very important for focus groups, so
give ample time for this

45. • Pay attention to all of the other ethical issues
that we have discussed in lecture up to this
point.

46. Generating Data

47. • Focus groups can generate lively discussion
and rich data, as participants reformulate their
views, engage in debate, and express and
explore shared cultural understandings

48. Stories Stimuli
(Making)
Sense
?

49. Ask the same thing again
and again
• Sometimes you want to
be very concrete in the
questions you are asking
• Sometimes it’s better to
ask the same thing in a
very “elaborate” way

50. • Guide responses and ‘head off trouble’.
• Especially useful when asking questions likely
to be unfamiliar in the context of everyday
interactions
• Ask questions flexible and provide a range of
alternative items to which participants can
respond
• Coach participants in the kind of responses that
are appropriate

51. Use your own summaries as
signposting for how the session is
going

52. It’s ok to theorise tentatively and
to invite participants to join in. But
be careful to explain or rephrase
terms
Remember - you are not the expert
in this scenario, participants can
join in and theorise too

53. Introducing Focus Groups
Generating Data
Underpinnings of Focus Group Research
Research Design
Planning and Running Focus Groups
Ethics and Engagement

54. Information in this
presentation was
based on…