Com 473--Baldwin—Communication—Illinois State University

Updated 10/12/09

Focus Groups

NOTE: Notes below are based on other sources—but the questions seem to remain much the same regardless of the source we use to describe focus groups. Specifically, as you read Morgan’s book, Focus Groups as Qualitative Research, think in terms of:

· Why/when (strengths/limitations, when to use or not use)

· Who (participants)

· What (content of questions)

· How

o Recruitment, set-up (recording equipment, seating, etc.)

o Actual running of group (data collection)

o Analysis of findings

While we don’t have the entire Sage Focus Group Series, it might still be good to break up the reading, so that each person is primarily responsible for one section, though I expect everyone to read the whole book. So—let’s break up the chapters like this (chapters are chosen randomly: http://www.random.org/ to be “totally objective” in chapter assignments!), with your number in the role book:

1: Intro: Baldwin

2: FGs as qualitative method: David, Jenifer

3: Uses of FGs: Melissa, Brian

4: Planning and research design: Katie, Jamie

5: Conducting: Curtis, Ashley

6: Additional possibilities: Maggie, Baldwin again

Old Notes:

Introduction: What is a Focus Group?

I. Rationale:

Why FG over other methods? (what are their strengths and limitations?)

What about action research? What are your responses, for example, to McIntyre’s (1997) Making meaning of whiteness? [discussed in class]

II. Set-up: Choices, choices, choices…

A. How big (or small)?

1. “Optimum size”

2. Reasons for bigger or smaller groups

3. Recruiting issues

B. How many?

C. Who?

1. Balanced heterogeneity

2. Strangers or friends?

D. Names or no names?

E. Keeping track of comments

F. Use of stimulus?

G. Skills of the interviewer

1. Springboard

2. Executive skills of interpretation and decision

3. Topic guide—not an interview schedule

· Who develops the guide?

· How is the guide used?

· Typical question order?

· What if the participants go out of order?

III. Getting Started

A. What is your first important task?

B. How might you structure your questions? How do the first few minutes differ from the rest of the interview?

C. Some ways to encourage talking. . .

D. Some possible traps for the interviewer

1. being the expert

2. sharing your opinions: exhibit “passionate neutrality” (p. 82)

E. How would you manage the following?

1. dominant people

2. shy people

3. loquacious people

4. marginalized people

“Technique is very important in moderating. But while technique is improvable, it is not peffecgtibale, and ther are very few definite rights and wrongs. It is hlargely a matter of evolving an approach and a set of skills which work fo ryou, which you feel comfortable with, and yet which preserves the necessartyobjectivity and balance outlined above” (Hedges, 1985, p. 85).

VARIATIONS on a THEME

Extended Groups

Reconvened Groups

Combined groups and individual interviews

Other possibilities

WRITING UP

What are the two levels of interpretation? Why are they necessary?

How does one make sense of the data?

What should the write-up look like?