Focus Groups

Focus groups are an in-depth discussion of between 6-12 people, which is focussed around a set of particular issues or topics. The discussion a trained specialist facilitates the discussion and the session's details are recorded and or noted by another person.

Advantages

Interaction between the participants makes people feel more comfortable and can lead to new ideas and perspectives.
Direct interaction with the group enables issues to be further probed and non-verbal responses can be noted.
Can be used to empower people by sharing views and moving from a negative to positive role together.
Effective place to explore and test new ideas.

Disadvantages

Ground rules around confidentiality need to be negotiated to ensure people feel comfortable to speak and that no one dominates the discussion
Cannot be used to extrapolate views of the whole population
Experienced facilitators can be difficult to find - cost implications.
A number of focus groups might be needed in order to validate findings.
Facilitator may influence discussion simply by their gender, age, culture or ethnicity.
To generate new ideas.

When to use

When you need to understand reasons for attitudes and behaviour.
As part of the preparation for a quantitative survey or to clarify issues raised as part of a quantative survey.

Composition of focus groups: it is tempting to try to get a group to be ‘fully representative’ of your users, target audience etc. However, experience shows that the more similar the group is in terms of gender, age and social class the easier it is for them to communicate effectively. You may need to set up more than one group in order to investigate all relevant groups.

Running a focus group: in order to run a successful focus group you need to have a level of understanding and knowledge about the subject matter to ensure you can respond to queries as they arise. This requires a degree of confidence and good people management skills. Some people will find that managing a focus group is difficult and will therefore look for an experienced facilitator.

The facilitator will need to ensure that everyone has a chance to speak and move the discussion along without imposing his or her own views onto the group. The facilitator also needs to probe and seek clarification of some responses. Here are some tips that might help you in running a group, especially the things that might go wrong! Hints and Tips