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 a long time ago, and Merton’s ‘focused interview’ was only one of 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 ‘80s. In the 1990s, social science rediscovered the method now generally called ‘focus group’, but the variety of uses and techniques, apparent in the diverse original denominations, persists.

To define more precisely what is meant by this term, one can begin with the three-point definition provided by David L. Morgan, 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 to advance research; 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 us to exclude configurations similar to focus groups such as, for example, collective interviews used outside a research context for marketing or training purposes. It also enables us to distinguish this method from other procedures that include multiple participants but which do not allow the emergence of interactive discussions, such as group experiments aimed at recording actions rather than discourse. Morgan’s 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 into ordinary conversation, such as might occur in everyday life. Finally, the focus group thus differs from citizen conferences initiated by political actors as a way of including citizens in the political decision-making process.

The chief characteristic of a focus group is the richness of its data: discourse must be considered as action and cannot be reduced to the expression of pre-existing opinions. But this richness is costly compared with what can be achieved with standard research methods. Collecting the data requires complex and expensive organisation, which is difficult for young researchers working on their own project. More importantly, analysing focus group data is far more difficult than data from face-to-face interviews, at least for research purposes, and takes a lot of time. This tends to be forgotten in the current fashion for focus groups.

Thus it is important for doctoral students and young researchers to get a clear idea of the consequences of focus group methodology before embarking on one – and this is the first purpose of this course. However, part of the fascination with 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 encounter most questions faced by qualitative researchers, both epistemologically and technically.

Day 1
I present the history of focus group research and its developments, to identify the domains and research questions in which it is most useful.

Days 2 and 3
I explain how to design a focus group, including sampling, questioning and moderating, as well as practical organisational considerations. Students will organise a real focus group.

Day 4
Focus group discussions are more complex to analyse than standard face-to-face interviews, so this day will place strong emphasis on analysis, from principles to techniques and tools. I will suggest a mix of interpretation, systematic comparison, codification and automatic textual analysis.

Day 5
We turn our attention to participants’ own research projects.

The course also aims to help you decide whether a particular method is appropriate for your own project, and to make a draft design of an affordable focus group series that would meet your research objectives.

In the mornings, we will go through various exercises, using focus group recordings and transcripts as well as examples from the literature. Lectures will take place in the afternoon. We will discuss results of the individual and group exercises the following afternoon.

THIS IS THE WINTER SCHOOL 2019 OUTLINE

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