Focus Groups – From Qualitative Data Generation to Analysis

Group interview, collective interview, group discussion, multiple interviews, focus group… all these kinds of interviews tend nowadays to be called focus groups. The idea that interviewing several people at the same time might be more advantageous than interviewing them separately was discovered long time ago, and Merton’s “focused interview” was only one among several suggestions about the reasons and the ways to do so. Merton’s model became successful in the field of applied research and consulting where its technical aspects were refined during the 70s and the 80s. In the 90s, social sciences rediscovered the method which is now generally called “focus group”, but the variety of uses and techniques, apparent in the diverse original denominations, persists.

In order to define more precisely what is meant by this term, one can begin with the three-point definition provided by David L. Morgan, an author who was essential in developing this method for use in social sciences. He defines a focus group as ‘as a research technique that collects data through group interaction on a topic determined by the researcher’ (Morgan 1997: 130). Three elements stand out in this relatively inclusive definition. Firstly the focus group is a research method designed to collect data. It is thus intended for research interests, in other words collecting discursive data destined for analysis, provoked and collected by a researcher on themes that she or he has chosen. Secondly, in the focus group the source of data lies in the interaction within the discussion group; the social relations that characterise them are not reduced to the relationship between the interviewer and interviewee but require the interactions of a collective discussion to be taken into account. Thirdly and finally, the focus group supposes the active intervention of the researcher in the creation of the group discussion in order to collect data.

This definition enables to exclude a series of configurations similar to focus groups such as collective interviews used outside a research context, for example, for marketing or training purposes. It also enables to distinguish this method from other procedures that included multiple participants but which do not allow the emergence of interactive discussions between them, such as group experiments aimed to record actions rather than discourse. This definition also excludes direct observation of naturally occurring discussions which cannot be described as interviews to the extent that the researcher does not intervene in the creation of data. Collective interviews therefore cannot be assimilated to ordinary conversation, such as might occur in everyday life. Finally, the focus group thus differs on these different points from the citizen conferences initiated by political actors as a way of including citizens in the political decision making process and reinforcing deliberation and public.

What chiefly characterises focus group is the richness of the data: discourse in this case has to be considered as action and cannot be reduced to the expression of pre-existing opinions. But this richness is costly, in comparison with what can be achieved with more standard research method. Collecting the data supposes a complex and expensive organisation, which is quite difficult to assume for young researchers working on their own project. More importantly, analysing focus group data is far more difficult than face-to-face interviews, at least for research purposes, and takes a lot of time. This tends to be forgotten because of the current fashion for focus groups. Thus it seems quite important for doctoral students and young researchers to get a clear idea of the consequences of this methodology before going for it; this is the first purpose of this course. However, part of the fascination for focus groups comes from the fact that the method embodies most of the challenges and specificities of qualitative research. In reviewing all the difficulties of focus group research, the course will come across most questions faced by qualitative researchers, both epistemologically and technically.

The course topics will be organised in a classical way. First the history of focus group research and its developments will be present in order to identify the domains and research questions where it is the more useful (day 1). Then the design of the groups including sampling, questioning and moderating, as well as issues related to their practical organisation will be detailed and a real focus group will be organized by students (days 2 and 3). Last but not least, a strong emphasis will be put on analysis, from principles to techniques and tools (day 4). Indeed, an important part of the course will be devoted to the analysis: focus group discussions are more complex to analyse than standard face-to-face interviews. A mix of several methods (interpretation, systematic comparison, codification and automatic textual analysis) will be suggested. Finally, special attention will be given to the students’ research projects (day 5). The course also aims to help them decide if the method is appropriate to their own project and to make a first design of an affordable focus group series that would meet their research objectives.

Practically, lecture will take place in the afternoon, and in the morning, students will go through various exercises, using focus group recordings and transcripts as well as numerous examples taken from the literature. Results of the personal and group exercises will be discussed the following afternoon.

Basic knowledge of qualitative research and previous practice of face-to-face interview will be an asset.