1. FOCUS GROUP

2. Is an unstructured , free-flowing interview with a small group of people.
Mostly used in exploratory researches.
It is not a rigidly constructed question-and- answer session, but a flexible format that encourages discussion of say, a labour issue, reaction towards a political candidate, or a product concept.

3. How Focus Groups are Conducted
Participants meet at a central location at a designate time.
The group consists of an interviewer or moderator and six to ten or even more participants who discus a single topic.
The participants depends on the nature of topic, e.g. Patients may meet to discuss health care issues, women may meet to discuss gender equality issues, e.t.c.

4. The moderator introduces the topic and encourages the group members to discuss the subject among themselves.
Focus groups allow people to discuss their true feeling, anxieties and frustrations and to express the depth of their convictions in their own words.
Ideally, the discussion proceeds at the group’s initiative.

5. Advantages
The primary advantage of focus group are that they are relatively brief, easy to execute, quickly analyzed and inexpensive.
In an emergency situation, three or four group sessions can be conducted, analyzed and reported in less than a week at a cost substantially lower than that of other attitude-measurement techniques.

6. The flexibility of group interviews is an advantage, especially when compared with the rigid format of survey.
Numerous topics can be discussed and many insights can be gained.
Responses which are unlikely to emerge in a survey, often come out in a group discussion.
Focus groups are often used for concept screening and refinement. The concept may be continually modified, refined and retested until management believes that the concept is acceptable.

7. Specific advantages of focus group
1. Synergism: the combined effort of the group will produce a wider range of information, insights and ideas than will the cumulation of separately secured responses of a number of individuals.
2. Serendipity: it is more often a case in a group than in an individual that some idea will drop out of the blue. The group also affords the opportunity to develop the idea to its full significance.

8. 3. Snowballing: a bandwagon effect often operates in a group interview situation. A comment by one individual often trigger a chain of responses from the other participants.
4. Stimulation: usually after a brief introduction, the respondents want to express their ideas and expose their feelings as the general level of excitement about the topic increases.

9. 5. Security: In the well-structured group, the individual can usually find some comfort in the fact that his or her feelings are similar to those of others in the group and that each participant can expose an idea without being obliged to defend it or to follow through and elaborate on it. The focus is on group rather than individual, therefore, the participant soon realizes that the things said are not necessarily being identified with him or her.

10. 6. Spontaneity: since no individual is required to answer any given question in a focus group, the individual’s responses can be more spontaneous and less conventional.
A spontaneous answer may provide a more accurate picture of the person’s position on some issues.

11. 7. Specialisation: the focus group allows the use of a more highly trained interviewer or moderator because there are certain economies of scale when a number of individuals are interviewed simultaneously.
8. Speed: The focus group permits securing a given number of interviews more quickly than does interviewing designated respondents.

12. 9.Scrutiny: permits closer scrutiny in several ways.
First, the session can be observed by several people; this affords some check on the consistency of interpretations.
Second, the session can be tape-recorded or videotaped, later detailed examination of the recorded session can offer additional insights and help clear up disagreements about what happened.

13. 10. Structure: focus group affords more control than the individual interview with regard to the topics covered and the depth in which they are treated.
The moderator is often one of the participants and therefore, has the opportunity to reopen topics that received too shallow a discussion when initially presented.

14. Group Composition
The ideal size of focus group is 6 to 10 individuals.
If the group is too small one or two members may intimidate the others.
Groups that are too large may not permit adequate participation by each group member.
Homogenous groups seem to work best.

15. Selecting homogeneous groups allows researchers to concentrate on individuals with similar lifestyles, job classifications, experiences, and communication skills.
The session thus does not become confused with too many arguments and different viewpoints stemming from diverse backgrounds.
For e.g. Accounts must be separated from engineers because of different view points.

16. Researchers who wish to collect information from different types of people should conduct several focus groups.
For e.g. One focus group consisting only of engineers and another accountants

17. Environmental Concern
The site of the group session may be at the:
Research agency place
Office conference room
A hotel
One of the subjects’ homes.
One researcher suggested that a coffee klatch or bull session atmosphere be established to ensure that the mood of the session will be as relaxed and natural as possible.

18. Moderator
Makes sure that everyone gets a chance to speak and how s/he contributes by asking questions to clarify topics that have been introduced into the discussion.
Develop a rapport with the group and to promote interaction among members.
The combined effort of the group is likely to produce a wider range of information, insights and ideas than a number of personal interviews would provide.

19. Moderator should be someone who is really interested in people, who listens carefully to what others have to say and who can readily establish rapport and gain the confidence of people and make them feel relaxed and eager to talk.
Careful listening is important because the group interview’s purpose is to stimulate spontaneous responses.

20. The moderator’s role is also to focus the discussion on the problem areas of concern.
When a topic is no longer generating fresh ideas, the effective moderator changes the flow of discussion.
The moderator does not give the group total control of the discussion, but normally has prepared questions on topics that are of concern.

21. The term focus group derives from the moderator’s task.
S/he starts out by asking for a general discussion but usually focuses in on specific topics during the session.

22. Planning the Focus Group outline
An effective focus group moderator prepares a discussion guide to help ensure that the focus group will cover all topics of interest.
Discussion guide is the moderator’s written prefatory remarks and outline of topics/questions that will be addressed.
Researchers who planned the outline establish certain objectives for each part of the focus group session.
The logical flow of the group session then moved from the general discussion about the issue to more focused discussion.

23. Focus group as diagnostic Tools
Researchers predominantly use focus groups to conduct exploratory research.
However, the findings from many surveys or other qualitative research studies raises more questions than they answer.
Managers who are puzzled about the meanings of survey research results may use focus groups to better understand what consumers have said in surveys.

24. In other words researchers use focus groups to diagnose problems suggested by qualitative research

25. Shortcomings of Focus Groups
1. without a sensitive and effective moderator, a single, self-appointed participant may dominate the session.
Sessions that include a dominant participant may be somewhat abnormal.
Participants may react negatively toward the dominant member, causing a “halo” effect on attitudes toward the concept or the topic of discussion.

26. 2. Representativeness- a small discussion group will rarely be a representative sample, no matter how carefully it is recruited.
3. Too much flexibility may mislead the discussion and may misguide the responses.
4. Fear- sometimes some members of the group may fear to participate, e.g. If I say this, the manager really knows that I am the originator of the idea and I will be victimised alone.

27. Concluding an FGD Thank everyone for coming.
Offer them refreshments (??????????)
Label the tapes you have used and number them more than one.

28. Labeling of the FGD Tapes
Names of participants and positions
Ø     Race of participants
Ø     Sex of participants
Ø     Ethnic group of participants
Ø     Religion of participants
Ø     Urban/Rural
Ø     Province
Ø     Date
Ø     Names of facilitators
Ø     Language(s) used