Focus groups

Focus groups

1. Definition

   • Is a carefully planned and moderated informal discussion where one person’s ideas bounce off another’s creating a chain reaction of informative dialogue (Anderson 1996: 200)

2. Procedure

   • 1)Establish the group
   • 2)Develop your questions
   • 3)Conduct the focus group
   • 4)Analyse group data

3. Purposes

   • To address a specific topic, in depth, in a comfortable environment to elicit a wide range of
     • OPINIONS
     • ATTITUDES
     • FEELINGS
     • PERCEPTIONS
       • from a group of individuals who share some common experience relative to the dimension under study.

4. Advantages

   • Effective and economical instrument of data collection.
   • All participants have equal access to the discussion
   • There are no restrictions on who may speak, how often and for how long
   • Participants do not have to wait for their turn to speak or be given permission
   • When participants speak, what they say is not specified in advance
   • Participants may recall details of their own experiences, release their own inhibitions and feel comfortable about contributing their own comments, and responding to comments made by other members of the group in supportive or critical ways.

5. Uses

   • Have occasionally been used to empower citizens and to foster social change, , rather than only to identify and describe the social situations which might
   • Researchers use focus-group interviews in the data-collection phase of their projects.

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