Chapter 6- Focus groups

Exercise 1:

Stimulus material for focus groups:
You could consider what sources you might use as stimulus materials if carrying out focus groups to address the research questions suggested elsewhere in this book.  You might even try some of these out with friends, or fellow students in order to see whether they give rise to the sort of discussions you want to elicit.

Please click on the links below to read commentaries on each potential research question, this time incorporating sources of stimulus material:

Potential Research Question 1: Do people view risk differently when they travel?

Commentary:

You might consider newspaper reports, for example.

Potential Research Question 2: Are our notions shifting with regard to how long we think adolescence lasts?

Commentary:

Again newspaper coverage might be useful, as tabloids, in particular appear to abound with examples of celebrities (such as Justin Bieber, TV soap characters or actors), or their offspring, behaving badly. This, of course, has the potential to ‘backfire’ – particularly if your participants are fans and likely to talk about the personalities involved rather than the issue highlighted.

Problem pages might also yield stimulus material In recent editions of the Guardian money supplement I have come across examples of parents writing in for advice in relation to sons aged, respectively 22 and 25 years.

Potential Research Question 3: What impact does media coverage of fertility treatment have on public perceptions of appropriate provision?

Commentary:

There should be no shortage of potential materials in relation to this topic, as there always seems to be come coverage of women in their 50s giving birth

Potential Research Question 4: What do people think about fathers’ attendance at deliveries?

Commentary:

If you have access to a group of midwives or obstetricians you might consider using some excerpts from the study I’ve referred to in Chapter 2 to explore their ideas about whether fathers’ attendance makes their job easier or more difficult; whether they have seen others – or even admit themselves to – having co-opted fathers in the pursuit of their professional goals; how they respond to the idea of ‘a good birth’ as involving making some value judgements about the couple involved.

Exercise 2:

Generating Focus Group Data:
I would recommend that you generate some data in relation to question 4: What do people think about fathers’ attendance at deliveries?   It is a topic that I have used in many workshops and it has always made for lively discussion.  It seems to be an issue on which everyone has a view – regardless of whether they are parents themselves or not.

Suggestions on How to Run This Exercise:
The focus group topic guide I’ve provided is very short and relies on two main questions (which I usually use in conjunction with two Claire Bretecher cartoons. You may, however, be pleasantly surprised at the richness of the data that using the two questions (with or without cartoons or other stimulus material) allows you to elicit. I’d suggest that only the person who elects to take the role of moderator consults the topic guide and that s/he does not distribute cartoons (or other stimulus material being used) until the focus group session begins. Although there are a few prompts, you may well not have to use these. In workshops I’ve usually limited this exercise to 25 minutes or so (indicating when participants are halfway through their allotted time, so that they can move on to the second cartoon and question) in order to keep transcription within manageable limits. You may, however, want to hold longer discussions. (Excerpts from transcripts generated in short sessions on this same topic are included in Chapter 9 to provide you with an opportunity to try out a coding frame and gain some experience of marking up a transcript. However, you may decide to take notes on your own data generating exercise - or even to fully transcribe this - in order to provide further comparative material to use in this later exercise.)

Click here to download the focus group topic guide

Our experience on one project serves to provide a detailed example of the process behind developing a focus group topic guide.  With one-to-one interviews with patients with dysarthria under way a member of the research team produced the following list of questions, which outlined all the area which we were interested in exploring in focus groups with carers.  However, it was considered that the topic guide needed to be shortened considerably and re-formulated.  You might want to take a look at this and have a go at re-formulating it, bearing in mind the guidelines discussed earlier.

Click here to download the list of questions to be covered in focus group discussions

You can also access three PowerPoint presentations - showing the variation (and similarity) in questioning routes:

Click here to download a topic guide for a pilot focus group with healthcare professionals.

Click here to download a PowerPoint presentation on running a focus group with parents and young people with ADHD.

Click here to download a PowerPoint presentation on a qualitative study of two hospital wards.

 

 

Author: Rosaline Barbour

Pub Date: November 2013

Pages: 392

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