9 Focus Groups

Many kinds of researchers use focus groups to achieve their research goals. Market researchers use focus groups to gather information about the products or services they aim to sell. Government officials and political campaign workers use them to learn how members of the public feel about a particular issue or candidate. Academics use focus groups to learn about perceptions of or opinions on various topics of interest. As with all other methodologies, the strengths and weaknesses of focus groups make them particularly useful for answering some research questions, and not so useful for answering others. This chapter explains focus group methodology and the strengths and weaknesses of the method.

What is a Focus Group?

Focus groups are planned discussions designed to elicit group interaction, to gain a deep understanding of people’s experiences and perceptions of complex social issues. In this method, a researcher gathers a small group of people to participate in a facilitated discussion on a topic of interest to the researcher. During the conversation, the researcher becomes a moderator, who organizes and guides the discussion by posing questions or topics for discussion to get the participants talking to each other. The moderator lets the group members discuss the questions or topic among themselves, intending to ensure everyone can respond and observe interactions among participants.

A researcher conducting focus groups collects data on more than people’s direct responses to their questions; group interaction is a key focal point. For example, during their conversations, participants may ask each other follow-up questions, agree or disagree with one another, display body language that tells us something about their feelings during the conversation, or even come up with new questions. Further, when people hear others talk, it can trigger responses or ideas that they have not yet considered. These are the kinds of interactions and displays that the researcher can focus on. Due to the nature and unpredictability of group interaction, and the fact that focus group researchers generally want to draw out group interaction, focus groups tend to be qualitative rather than quantitative.

Strengths and Weaknesses of Focus Groups

Focus groups share many of the strengths and weaknesses of one-on-one qualitative interviews, which we’ll discuss later. Both methods can yield detailed, in-depth information; are excellent for studying social processes; and allow researchers to hear what participants say and observe their body language. Focus groups offer the added benefit of giving researchers a chance to collect data on human interaction by observing how group participants respond and react to one another.

Focus groups can also be quite expensive and time-consuming. However, there may be some time-saving with focus groups, as it takes fewer group events than one-on-one interviews to gather data from the same number of people. Another potential drawback of focus groups is that one or two participants might dominate the group, silencing other participants. Careful planning and skillful moderation by the research can help avoid, or at least deal with such possibilities. Table 9.1 summarizes the strengths and weaknesses of focus groups.

Table 9. 1 Strengths and Weaknesses of Focus Groups

Considerations for Forming and Conducting Focus Groups

The effective use of focus groups for data collection requires careful planning and skillful moderating. In some ways, focus groups require more advanced planning than other qualitative methods of data collection, such as one-on-one interviews, where a researcher may be better able to control the setting and the dialogue, or field research, where “going with the flow” and observing events as they happen in their natural setting is the primary aim.

Group Size and Composition

When forming focus groups, researchers must form groups whose members will want to interact with one another. They should also control the event duration so participants do not stay for longer than they’ve agreed to participate. The researcher must be prepared to inform focus group participants of their responsibility to maintain the confidentiality of what is said. At the same time, the researcher must also clarify to participants that the unique nature of the group setting prevents them from being able to promise complete confidentiality.

Researchers determine the size of focus groups by the topic of interest and their sense of how much participants will have to say about the topic. If the topic is likely to invoke passionate responses and conversation, a group of 3 to 5 people may be ideal. Groups larger than that, especially for heated discussions, can become unmanageable. For other topics, a group of about 6 to 10 participants may be ideal for focus group research. If you’re going to form a focus group, you’ll want to consider what you know about the topic and participants’ potential interest in, passion for, and feelings about the topic. You should also consider your comfort level and experience in conducting focus groups. These factors will help you decide the best size for your research project. As this discussion indicates, the researcher will choose the focus group size, and they may conduct multiple focus groups on the same topic to increase their sample size.

Once you’ve decided to form a focus group, you’ll need to consider who might be willing to talk to each other. It may seem counterintuitive, but focus groups with participants who don’t know each other may provide more information than groups where participants are friends, relatives, or acquaintances. To understand why, consider how you interact and talk with your closest friends. Are there abbreviations or slang words you use that outsiders may not understand? Do you have previous experiences together that you refer to often without needing explanations? If you and your closest friends were to form a focus group, your taken-for-granted, shared knowledge and assumptions about each other and the topic could make it hard for a researcher to collect quality data because you might not talk about things that you think everyone there already knows. Conversely, you may be discouraged from questioning or raising issues with shared knowledge and assumptions if you’re with a group of close friends. In addition, researchers should avoid setting up interactions where participants are so heterogeneous that they feel uncomfortable talking with one another.

Whatever composition a researcher designs for their focus groups, they must remember the extent to which social contexts impact group dynamics. Participants’ silence as well as their speech may be shaped by gender, race, class, sexuality, age, and other background characteristics or social dynamics, all of which might be suppressed or exacerbated depending on the composition of the group.

Moderating Focus Groups

As facilitated discussions, focus groups must be guided by a skilled moderator. The researcher often moderates the discussion, but sometimes they bring in a trained, outside person to serve in this role. Whoever moderates the focus groups must provide enough space for interaction and discussion, while ensuring that the group achieves the research goals.

At the outset of the focus group, the moderator must set ground rules. Let’s assume that you’re the moderator. You’d begin by reminding participants that they’ve been invited to participate because you want to hear from all of them. Therefore, the group should aim to let one person speak at a time and avoid letting just a couple of participants dominate the conversation. One way to do this is to begin the discussion by asking participants to briefly introduce themselves or to provide a brief response to an opening question. This will help set the tone of having all group members participate. You’d also ask participants to avoid having side conversations because it’s important to share thoughts about or reactions to the group’s conversation with everyone, rather than only a few group members.

Once the focus group begins, the moderator plays a less active role than in a one-on-one interview. Sometimes, the conversation may stall, or you as a moderator may want to guide the conversation in another direction. In these instances, the moderator must demonstrate that they’ve been paying attention to the conversation before trying to guide it in a new direction. For example, the moderator should be prepared to interject statements or questions such as “I’d really like to hear more about what Sally and Joe think about what Dominick and Ashley have been saying” or “Several of you have mentioned ____. What do others think about this?”. These kinds of statements and questions can help in a variety of ways, including keeping the conversation going, redirecting the conversation, shifting the focus to participants who have been less active in the group, and serving as a cue to those who may be dominating the conversation to allow others to speak.

In sum, focus groups are a useful method for researchers who wish to gather in-depth information about social processes. Focus groups resemble one-on-one qualitative interviews in many ways, but they allow researchers to observe group dynamics that cannot be observed in one-on-one interviews. Historically, focus group research was used by applied researchers rather than by academics. However, in recent decades, social scientists from all domains have discovered the usefulness of focus groups in understanding social processes, using this data collection method in their studies.

Summary

• Focus groups are moderated discussions designed to elicit group interaction.
• Focus groups help researchers gather detailed, in-depth data on a social issue or process. They’re less time-consuming than interviews, allowing for observations of body language and interaction dynamics in addition to what participants say.
• Focus groups can be expensive and more time-consuming than survey research. They also require a skilled moderator who can ensure that all participants have a chance to speak and that some participants don’t dominate the conversation.
• The researcher determines the size of focus groups based on the goals and topic of the research. Generally, a group will not be fewer than 3 people or larger than 10 people.
• Generally, focus group members should not already know each other but must also be similar enough that they feel comfortable talking to each other.
• Moderating focus groups requires skills in setting ground rules for discussion, keeping the conversation going, ensuring equal participation of everyone in the group, and guiding the discussion to achieve the research goals.

Discussion Questions

1. How are focus groups different from an informal conversation among friends?
2. Considering the strengths and weaknesses of focus groups, what kinds of research approaches, goals, and questions do you think focus groups are best suited for?
3. If you were to design a study using a focus group to understand how people talk about the death penalty, what would be the best size for your group? Why?
4. If you were to design a study using a focus group to understand how people talk about the death penalty, what would you need to consider about group composition? Why would these factors be important?
5. Based on the information in this chapter, design a set of ground rules that you’d use to moderate a focus group. Why would each rule be important for your research goals?