A few notes on focus group research JMS3 JDD 2006

References  Wimmer, R and Dominick, J Qualitative Research Methods. In Mass Media Research.  Fontana, A and Frey, J Interviewing: The Art of Science.’ In NK Denzin and YS Lincoln (eds.) The Handbook of Qualitative Research.

What are focus groups?  Focus group/ group interview is a controlled group discussion to gather preliminary information for a research project.  Focus groups generate:  discussion – reveals both the meanings that people read into the discussion topic and how they negotiated those meanings;  diversity and difference, either within or between groups.

What are they for?  Simulates ethnographic processes of talk and argumentation  6-12 people interviewed simultaneously.  Moderator leads interaction and inquiry in a structured or unstructured way, depending on interviewer’s purpose.  Our purpose is exploratory – relatively unstructured?  Moderator must be flexible, objective, empathic, persuasive, a good listener.

Advantages of focus groups  Allows for collection of preliminary information  Can be conducted quickly – most time is spent recruiting the participants  Flexibility in question design (not rigid set of questions as in conventional surveys)

 Moderator works from a list of broad questions as well as more refined probe questions – therefore easy to follow-up on points raised by participants.  Focus group responses are often more complete, less inhibited than individual interviews – one respondent’s remarks stimulate others to pursue new lines of thinking (snowball effect)

Disadvantages of focus group  Some groups become dominated by self- appointed group leader – imposes his/ her opinion on others  Could have negative effect on performance of group (group culture may interfere with individual expression, problem of “group think”)

 Dependent on the skills of the moderator – must know when to prove for further information, when to stop respondents from discussing irrelevant topics, how to encourage participation from all  Recording equipment or physical environment may inhibit respondents

Role of the moderator  Moderator’s role important – must manage the dynamics of the group.  “The group interviewer must simultaneously worry about the script of questions and be sensitive to the evolving patterns of group interaction.” (Frey and Fontana)

A critical approach  Lund, P ‘Rethinking the focus group in media and communications research’. Journal of Communication.  Critical approach  What is the researcher’s own position in the interviews?  How did he or she find and get on with the interviewees?  What were the reasons that people took part in the research?  (These questions connected to the power of researcher, exploitation/ empowerment of the researched?)

Some questions  Should focus groups meet more than once? Give members time to create a unique culture, with its own history, humour, preoccupations and concerns – learn together by sharing experiences?  Should we use a ‘funnelling process’, i.e. “allow groups initially to determine their own agendas as much as possible before urging them to focus on specific issues”. (Schlesinger, Dobash and Weaver)

More questions  Focus groups allow opportunity for unanticipated issues to arise, but perhaps we need a broadly standardised format with a schedule of topics that must be addressed (for group comparability)?  Groups context of focus groups – does this bias the data so strongly as to render it useless? Examples are:  group think (false consensus) or;  a shift towards unrepresentative extremes.

 But, focus group researchers are more interested in socially expressed, and contested, opinions and discourses than in individual attitudes.  Choice of group interviews on grounds that “much individually based interview research is flawed by focus on individuals as social atoms divorced from their social context”. (Morley)  Interpersonal relations in focus groups may be part of the research data (not just interfering, problematic distractions).