Focus Group Discussion

What is a Focus Group



Group of individuals assembled by the researchers to comment from personal experience on the subject.  One can obtain multiple perspectives from the group  More effective and cost efficient than survey research  Unexpected findings may arise.

Group


Size: anywhere from 6 to 12  For two hours or so  Members selected from planned sample  Make sure that participants have ample knowledge on the subject  Participants need to be updated before on the topic

Moderator


Introduces and updates to the participants as to what is going to be discussed.  Group should be with common interests, experience.  Effectiveness of the group would depend on the moderator who needs to control the group

Question should be open ended, clearly formatted, neutral and sequential.  Audio/video recording would help to gather information


Advantages


Hands on  Indepth  Timely and cost effective  snowballing

Techniques
Projective techniques: to get on to the sub conscious mind of the individuals.  Uncover the inner motives  Feelings, beliefs, attitudes  Expose to various scenarios and asked to interpret them


Association techniques


Word association  Participants are presented with a stimulus and are asked to reveal the first word, image or thought.

Completion technique
Sentence and story completion  Participant is asked to fill up the blank in the sentence


Construction Technique


Asked to construct stories, cartoons pictures, etc

Sociometry


Understanding the group behaviour of the people.