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How to Conduct a Focus Group…

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As conducted a focus-group and an interview for the project MIT-MUT this week, I collected the most important aspects of conducting focus groups on this page.

This is a picture of the focus group and the teachers of the PNMS Zwettl. I held a focus group with the students and and an interview with the teacher. The aim was to get an understanding of the project’s impact.

MITMUTPNMZwettl

Group picture with the student, their IT teacher and the director of the school.

Basically, a focus group is an interview with several people and in the end you generate data through the focussed discussion. It’s about understanding common opinions and differences, ideas and perceptions concerning a certain research-question.

Preparation of the focus group

Until now I just conducted individual interviews, also mainly for recording it on a video. The interview person knew already the question and could think about it. In my focus group, the participants won’t know which questions will be asked, therefore also possible misunderstandings cannot be solved already in advance. I really have to focus on using a clear language, articulating loud and clearly when talking.

I found helpful guidelines for conducting focus groups by the Duke Trinity College of Arts & Science.

I also found some helping hints by NOAA Coastal Services Center.

What was very relevant for me and my upcoming focus group when reading through the guidelines of the Duke Trinity College?

  • According to the guidelines of the Duke Trinity College, the size of my focus group (5 students) seems okay. The ideal size was said to be between 6 and 10 persons – enough to have a rich discussion, but still small enough nobody feels left out.
  • The moderator of the focus group should support the participants in sharing their opinions, to nurture discussion and to collect as many ideas as possible within the timeframe (which should not exeed 90 minutes.
  • There shouldn’t be asked more than 12 questions. This might be a problem as it seems that our project team prepared way more questions. I have to think about this and go deeper into the matter through literature research.
  • The participants of the focus group should be homogenous concerning a certain variable – in our project this variable is the participation within the MIT-MUT challenge online.
  • At least 3-4 focus groups are necessary to generate valid results – always with the same set of questions. –> We conduct more than 4 focus groups, so in this aspect we can ensure valid results.
  • The questions, which will be asked are important: They need to be short and to the point. They shouldn’t be confusing. Targeting different dimensions in one questions should be avoided – the answer could differ too much, considering different aspects. The questions should be open-ended (not yes-no questions) and should not be embarrasing for the participants of the focus group.
  • There are three types of questions: Engagement questions (like a warm-up), exploration questions (to get participants to the discussion), exit question (to check if something was missed during discussion)
  • An ice-breaker for the beginning is useful. The moderator should get sure that all participants are involved within the target group and in discussion. In the end it is important not forgetting to thank the participants of the target group for their time – valuing the participants and their opinions is an important aspect anyway.
  • The transcription of the recorded focus group is an important basis to generate valid results. It’s easier if each comment is numbered (e.g. 3.6. if it was the third question and the sixth answer to it).
  • Create a excel sheet, which should cover following points:
    • A column for coding
    • A column for the participant ID
    • A column for the responses
  • Analysing: Then the comments/response are analysed and categories are developed (the involvement of several people is beneficial for this), number the categories and categorize the responses in the excel sheet.
  • Synthesizing: Think of headings of categories/sub categories, summarize the results and use meaningful quotes from the focus groups.

At one point I want to go a bit deeper – there were a few pages containing several questions (definitely exceeding the recommended maximum amount of questions). Concerning the degree of structure, the “Introduction to Conducting Focus Groups” by NOAA Coastal Services Center helped me to understand this issue a bit better (p.3). I have the impression, that the questions we prepared for the focus group aber very detailed and extremely structured.

“A truly ‘fixed’ design can restrict the facilitator’s ability to explore issues as freely or deeply as he or she might like when the opportunity arises, which seems to defeat the purpose of using a ‘qualitative’ approach to data collection.” (NOAA Coastal Services Center, 2009, p.3)
I can imagine, that this might also be an issue with our questions. I review the questions again, after reading these hints and guidelines.
 After further reasearch on the internet, I found following wiki by the University of British Columbia, where it was described how to conduct student focus groups (http://wiki.ubc.ca/Documentation:Student_Focus_Group). There were also helpful videos on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Auf9pkuCc8k
Also I found following video “Fundamentals of Qualitative Research Methods: Focus Groups” by Yale University very helpful: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCAPz14yjd4
Dr. Leslie Curry leads through the module and explains how focus groups are conducted. The video is focused on focus group in health care, but the information is on a general basic level and can be easily transferred to various disciplines.
Conducting the focus group – reccomendation within the video with Dr. Curry:
In the video, it was particularly interesting, that it was recommended to ask “think back”-questions (“Think back, how did you feel when…” and the moderator of the focus group should not ask why-questions (it is too direct, participants are maybe rather defensive – rather let participants decribe) or give examples.
Identifying speakers is important “What do you think Mary?”, “Is this what you feel like, too Henry?”
Before somebody speaks, the name should be said so it can be traced back who spoke! This seems like a very practical hint for me.
Non-verbal information is also important: You should have two people – a moderator and someone who is noticing the non-verbal signals within the focus group.

[:en]As I will conduct a focus-group and an interview for the project MIT-MUT this week, I will collect the most important aspects of conductin focus groups on this page. Basically, a focus group is an interview with several people and in the end you generate data through the focussed discussion. It’s about understanding common opinions and differences, ideas and perceptions concerning a certain research-question.

Preparation of the focus group

Until now I just conducted individual interviews, also mainly for recording it on a video. The interview person knew already the question and could think about it. In my focus group, the participants won’t know which questions will be asked, therefore also possible misunderstandings cannot be solved already in advance. I really have to focus on using a clear language, articulating loud and clearly when talking.

I found helpful guidelines for conducting focus groups by the Duke Trinity College of Arts & Science.

I also found some helping hints by NOAA Coastal Services Center.

What was very relevant for me and my upcoming focus group when reading through the guidelines of the Duke Trinity College?

  • According to the guidelines of the Duke Trinity College, the size of my focus group (5 students) seems okay. The ideal size was said to be between 6 and 10 persons – enough to have a rich discussion, but still small enough nobody feels left out.
  • The moderator of the focus group should support the participants in sharing their opinions, to nurture discussion and to collect as many ideas as possible within the timeframe (which should not exeed 90 minutes.
  • There shouldn’t be asked more than 12 questions. This might be a problem as it seems that our project team prepared way more questions. I have to think about this and go deeper into the matter through literature research.
  • The participants of the focus group should be homogenous concerning a certain variable – in our project this variable is the participation within the MIT-MUT challenge online.
  • At least 3-4 focus groups are necessary to generate valid results – always with the same set of questions. –> We conduct more than 4 focus groups, so in this aspect we can ensure valid results.
  • The questions, which will be asked are important: They need to be short and to the point. They shouldn’t be confusing. Targeting different dimensions in one questions should be avoided – the answer could differ too much, considering different aspects. The questions should be open-ended (not yes-no questions) and should not be embarrasing for the participants of the focus group.
  • There are three types of questions: Engagement questions (like a warm-up), exploration questions (to get participants to the discussion), exit question (to check if something was missed during discussion)
  • An ice-breaker for the beginning is useful. The moderator should get sure that all participants are involved within the target group and in discussion. In the end it is important not forgetting to thank the participants of the target group for their time – valuing the participants and their opinions is an important aspect anyway.
  • The transcription of the recorded focus group is an important basis to generate valid results. It’s easier if each comment is numbered (e.g. 3.6. if it was the third question and the sixth answer to it).
  • Create a excel sheet, which should cover following points:
    • A column for coding
    • A column for the participant ID
    • A column for the responses
  • Analysing: Then the comments/response are analysed and categories are developed (the involvement of several people is beneficial for this), number the categories and categorize the responses in the excel sheet.
  • Synthesizing: Think of headings of categories/sub categories, summarize the results and use meaningful quotes from the focus groups.

At one point I want to go a bit deeper – there were a few pages containing several questions (definitely exceeding the recommended maximum amount of questions). Concerning the degree of structure, the “Introduction to Conducting Focus Groups” by NOAA Coastal Services Center helped me to understand this issue a bit better (p.3). I have the impression, that the questions we prepared for the focus group aber very detailed and extremely structured.

“A truly ‘fixed’ design can restrict the facilitator’s ability to explore issues as freely or deeply as he or she might like when the opportunity arises, which seems to defeat the purpose of using a ‘qualitative’ approach to data collection.” (NOAA Coastal Services Center, 2009, p.3)
I can imagine, that this might also be an issue with our questions. I review the questions again, after reading these hints and guidelines.
 After further reasearch on the internet, I found following wiki by the University of British Columbia, where it was described how to conduct student focus groups (http://wiki.ubc.ca/Documentation:Student_Focus_Group). There were also helpful videos on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Auf9pkuCc8k
Also I found following video “Fundamentals of Qualitative Research Methods: Focus Groups” by Yale University very helpful: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCAPz14yjd4
Dr. Leslie Curry leads through the module and explains how focus groups are conducted. The video is focused on focus group in health care, but the information is on a general basic level and can be easily transferred to various disciplines.
Conducting the focus group – reccomendation within the video with Dr. Curry:
In the video, it was particularly interesting, that it was recommended to ask “think back”-questions (“Think back, how did you feel when…” and the moderator of the focus group should not ask why-questions (it is too direct, participants are maybe rather defensive – rather let participants decribe) or give examples.
Identifying speakers is important “What do you think Mary?”, “Is this what you feel like, too Henry?”
Before somebody speaks, the name should be said so it can be traced back who spoke! This seems like a very practical hint for me.
Non-verbal information is also important: You should have two people – a moderator and someone who is noticing the non-verbal signals within the focus group.

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