Conducting focus-group interviews

Conducting focus-group interviews

Establish the group

Develop your questions

Conduct the focus group

Analyse group data

The group is made up of participants.

It need not contain a fixed number of participants

Screening produces a ‘sampling frame’.

The participants should feel he or she are taking part in a free-flowing discussion,

Recom-mend that you begin with a brainstorming

General and positive questions which are easy to answer inorder to engage and reassure the participants

To specific key questions which focus on the issue ofconcern and may be more challenging

Follow-up questions in light of participants’ comments.Try to get to the heart of the matter

Questions make sense and are respectfully expressed.Do they get the kind of response you want?

Test out your questions with colleagues or friends, and revise themwhere necessary

The responsibility of the moderator

By organising a seating plan for the participants

That participants can make eye contact with one another as well as hear each other

Arranging for the discussion to be recorded (on audio-tape or mini-disk, or even video),outlining the purpose of the meeting to the group, and so on.

The single most important responsibility as moderator is to ask the research questions

by introducing them appropriately

probing further,

pausing to let participants have their say,

involving all participants and always remaining neutral and impartial

Transcribing the tapes in order to produce an accurate record

Exclude anycoughs, sneezes, he sitations, false starts, trip-ups and repetitions you hear, and feel free to correct speakers

Include with each transcript other documents and an accompanying information you may have collected from each interview

Tips for analysing your data

Transcribe the interviews

Type up significant notes

Gather together transcripts, notes and other documents in apreliminary record

Cut-and-paste your data into themes, patterns, trends, etc.

Organise your categories into subcategories and arrange them in orderof importance

Select and edit actual quotations to illustrate your emerging themes

Think about investigating emerging issues further, perhaps by using alternative instruments