benefits of focus groups in qualitative research

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• v.2(2); 2021 Jun

Zooming into Focus Groups: Strategies for Qualitative Research in the Era of Social Distancing

Lekshmi santhosh.

1 Department of Medicine, University of California-San Francisco, San Francisco, California

Juan C. Rojas

2 Department of Medicine, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois

Patrick G. Lyons

3 Department of Medicine, School of Medicine, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri; and

4 Healthcare Innovation Laboratory, BJC HealthCare, St. Louis, Missouri

Associated Data

Qualitative research methods are important and have become increasingly prominent in medical education and research. The reason is simple: many pressing questions in these fields require qualitative approaches to elicit nuanced insights and additional meaning beyond standard quantitative measurements in surveys or observatons. Among the most common qualitative data collection methods are structured or semistructured in-person interviews and focus groups, in which participants describe their experiences relevant to the research question at hand. In the era of physical and social distancing because of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, little guidance exists for strategies for conducting focus groups or semistructured interviews. Here we describe our experience with, and recommendations for, conducting remote focus groups and/or interviews in the era of social distancing. Specifically, we discuss best practice recommendations for researchers using video teleconferencing programs to continue qualitative research during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Qualitative research focuses on exploring individuals’ perspectives related to specific research questions, issues, or activities ( 1 ). Frequently, structured interviews or focus groups are tools employed for data collection for qualitative research. In-person interviews are ideal, although phone and digital alternatives may be considered ( 2 , 3 ). However, little guidance exists for strategies for conducting focus groups or semistructured interviews in the era of physical and social distancing with the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. In this article, we describe some strategies for conducting focus groups or structured interviews with the use of video conferencing platforms ( Figure 1 ). Video conferencing may provide researchers and research participants with a convenient and safe alternative to in-person qualitative research, albeit with some important limitations and considerations.

Key strategies to ensure successful remote focus groups and interviews. IRB = institutional review board.

Throughout 2019, we collaborated on a series of stakeholder focus groups to explore clinician experiences with patient handoffs between the intensive care unit and the wards. These focus groups, conducted in-person at our respective academic medical centers, helped us delineate key strengths and “pain points” of our handoff processes and identify facilitators and barriers to the user-centered design and implementation of a new process ( 4 ). We had scheduled subsequent in-person focus groups for this iterative design and testing process to take place in Spring 2020. However, we were forced to recalibrate our plans based on the rapidly changing COVID-19 situation and the situations of our intended participants (internal medicine residents). This article provides some practical guidance and reflections based on our experiences conducting semistructured focus groups using a videoconference platform with internal medicine residents at three academic medical centers. We outline our recommendations by describing the process of these remote focus groups, from planning and recruitment to the execution and technical troubleshooting of the videoconference.

Setting the Stage

More than ever, healthcare professionals are overtaxed because of increased clinical responsibilities; new or altered clinical environments and workflows; and increased burdens of administrative, educational, and investigatory work conducted by phone, e-mail, and video conference ( 5 – 7 ). Because of the school and childcare facility closures, many healthcare professionals may be engaged in nonclinical work while simultaneously caring for their children or supervising remote learning ( 8 ). With this in mind, we recommend that researchers carefully consider the timing of planned focus groups or interviews to maximize participation and minimize the strain on potential participants. Whenever possible, researchers should seek input on optimal timing and duration from potential participants.

The flexibility of video conferencing may potentially allow researchers to recruit participants by eliminating transportation and transit time barriers and allows for increased flexibility to consider scheduling focus groups or interviews at nontraditional times to accommodate the participants’ schedules.

Overall, we recommend that focus groups are conducted over video rather than audio if unable to be done in-person. Audio-only experiences are inherently more challenging than remote video sessions; it is difficult to tell when participants are speaking but muted, to identify an individual speaker among many participants, and to interpret tone and body language. In addition, audio-only encounters often limit crosstalk, which can enhance the depth of responses. We acknowledge that video is less private than audio, but it may be more private than in-person (e.g., a participant may decline to enroll in an in-person interview or group around a sensitive topic if they do not wish to be seen physically entering or exiting a known research room). Consent must specify whether audio alone is being recorded, or whether video and audio are both recorded.

Most importantly, before recruitment and consent, researchers should identify which video teleconferencing platform (e.g., Zoom, Google Meet, or Microsoft Teams) is best suited for the project ( Table 1 ); because these platforms share many of the same capabilities (e.g., screencasting/sharing and audio recording), this decision may be based on institutional adoption or availability.

Overview of several common videoconferencing platforms

Definition of abbreviation : HIPAA = Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.

Recruitment and Consent

Although some local institutional review board (IRB) procedures may have changed in response to COVID-19, qualitative research projects with human participants still require IRB review for determination of exempt status or formal approval. Researchers should obtain IRB approval to record the audio from the focus group or structured interview if a recording is desired.

Recruitment is likely to be predominantly virtual, in the form of e-mail “blasts” describing the study and providing the information needed for informed consent. After completing recruitment and selecting a video conferencing platform for the proposed research, we recommend providing attendees a password-protected electronic invitation to ensure the privacy of the session. In addition, it is helpful when this invitation includes an attached electronic calendar “event,” which can allow potential participants to quickly cross reference their electronic calendars, which are increasingly full of virtual meetings. Gray and colleagues found that participants wanted to synchronize these invitations with their electronic calendars and preferred the interview be limited to 1 hour at most, to avoid fatigue and schedule disruption ( 9 ). Zoom and other similar platforms offer a straightforward option for participants to add the session to their personal electronic calendars automatically. We recommend this method of invitation to increase convenience for participants who are increasingly accustomed to daily schedules of virtual meetings.

As with in-person focus groups, there is likely to be a “U-shaped” relationship between the number of participants and the volume and depth of insights gained within a session; too few participants may prevent dialogue and limit progress toward thematic saturation or uncovering new insights, whereas too many participants will preclude opportunities for deeper follow-up and will limit the amount of time that any single participant may contribute. Most commonly available videoconference platforms permit audience sizes of 50 or more, which far exceeds the number of participants a typical focus group would contain.

Presession Technical Preparation

It is crucial that researchers familiarize themselves with the interface and options of their chosen videoconference platform, both to maximize the effectiveness of their session facilitation and to improve their ability to solve common technical difficulties that may arise. This preparation should take place on the computing device that the researcher intends to use for research sessions to ensure that video, audio volume, and internet speed are adequate to host a successful video conference meeting. We recommend recording a practice session to become familiar with recording logistics and file storage locations, and to ensure the device’s microphone records clearly enough for participants’ hearing and transcription. Beyond the opportunity to troubleshoot the virtual platform, this practice session may also serve the second purpose of familiarizing the facilitator with the discussion questions.

Of note, researchers should evaluate the adequacy of their devices’ storage capabilities, given the large file sizes required to record audio and video. Many universities provide network storage solutions to members of their academic community, which may help facilitate storing large files. Importantly, if the research participants are patients, any recorded data (i.e., audio, video, and transcripts) are considered protected health information. These data require additional privacy considerations, especially around storage and electronic transfer. Because commercial video chat platforms may host or store files on their servers, the research team should ensure, ahead of time, that any commercial video chat platform used for research meets both the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act and institutional standards for secure data storage.

After successful completion of the trial run as a host, we recommend contacting the study participants before the session to ensure that any technical questions or concerns are addressed.

Introducing the Session

Initializing a virtual meeting is, in many ways, similar to initializing an in-person meeting. Like physical meetings, attendees may “trickle in” late because of preceding scheduled events or technical difficulties. We recommend allowing 1–5 minutes at the session’s beginning to account for late arrivals and to address technical issues if any are apparent. Once individuals are in the meeting, the facilitator can “lock” the session so uninvited attendees do not “Zoom-bomb.” In addition, researchers can further protect their meeting by using a Waiting Room, if available. Videoconference waiting rooms are virtual staging areas, which prevents attendees from joining a meeting until permitted, either individually or in a group, to enter. The facilitator should introduce the focus group or structured interviews just as they would an in-person session, including assurances regarding confidentiality, an overview of the session’s objectives, and an explicit statement of the session’s ground rules. The facilitator should obtain permission to record the focus group or structured interview and provide attendees the opportunity to leave the meeting if they do not consent to the recording. Finally, we recommend that researchers consider using a visual cue on a shared slide to remind them to initiate recording before beginning the session’s questions. Ideally, having two individuals record the meeting helps ensure redundancy so that if one individual has recording issues, the copy is preserved.

Depending on the size of the focus group or structured interview, the facilitator may wish to describe, at the meeting’s beginning, how attendee opinions will be solicited. For example, focus group participants can “unmute” themselves to speak or use the “raise hand” function on the meeting service. We recommend discouraging the use of the “chat” function because chat box contents are not recorded unless explicitly read aloud. If attendees do type in the chat box during the session, we recommend that the facilitator read the chat box contents aloud to capture these insights in the recording and transcript. Last, consider asking attendees to share their video feeds so participants and leaders can view attendee facial expressions and identify visual cues when individuals are about to speak (or are speaking, but are inadvertently muted). However, we recognize that this recommendation could limit participation by attendees without video-capable devices and/or put undue stress or burden on attendees who may be simultaneously parenting or multitasking. Above all, researchers should encourage attendees to make choices that will maximize their comfort with the session, and thus, maximize their contributions to the discussion.

During the Session

In general, remote qualitative inquiry sessions should follow a structure similar to that of face-to-face sessions. The facilitator should use effective moderation techniques online just as they would in-person. We have found that having an additional research team member serve as a scribe and timekeeper is helpful, if available. This teammate could also serve as a backup host if the primary host has unresolvable technical issues. Facilitators guiding semistructured interviews should ask follow-up probing questions and avoid sharing their own opinion, asking closed or leading questions, and other missteps that contribute to bias.

Within these general guidelines, however, the research team should be cognizant of the ways in which remote interactions differ from a live discussion. For instance, participants may be either more (e.g., because of additional perceived anonymity) or less (e.g., because of multitasking) likely to interact on videoconference, which may require proactive facilitation (e.g., direction questions or probes to individual participants). Similarly, a proactive facilitator may wish to be particularly attentive for openings to ask probing or follow-up questions, as some data suggest that online qualitative inquiry provides less opportunity for probing and follow-up ( 10 ). Furthermore, microphone technology is likely to preclude the degree of crosstalk seen in many face-to-face focus groups, which could limit the depth and quality of dialogue elicited. This lack of crosstalk may inhibit the ability to develop social norms, which are often a key factor distinguishing focus groups from individual structured interviews. It is not known whether facilitator behaviors or factors like focus group size can modify these limitations, although certain characteristics of focus group questions (e.g., open-ended) appear to yield richer discussion and data ( 10 ). Finally, if an audio-only focus group is the only option, we suggest using a visual model (e.g., a map or list of participants) to remind the facilitator of focus group participants, so notes can be transcribed visually under each participant.

Researchers should consider the need to maintain the privacy and potential anonymity of all participants, as outlined in the project’s IRB protocol. This consideration should also include any potential protected health information if the participants are patients. If strict anonymity is required, avoid stating participants’ names during the recording. If deidentification during transcription or review is appropriate, using the names of participants may increase the connection between the facilitator and the respondent, allowing for greater psychological safety.

After the Session

Concluding a virtual interview or focus group is similar to concluding an in-person session of the same type. The researchers should thank participants for their time, particularly given the stressors of the pandemic. In addition, we recommend discussing criteria for possible follow-up discussions. After ending the recording, ensure the file is saved to a secure location. Use professional transcription software to transcribe the audio recording from the focus group. Analyze the data with the qualitative framework outlined in the study design stage.

Because qualitative analysis of remote interviews and focus groups is typically conducted on transcribed audio, the decision to use a video platform often has little impact on data analysis. However, in some situations, the recorded video may prove advantageous. For example, the inclusion of video might facilitate the differentiation of speakers or clarification of unclear words during transcription or transcript reviews. Similarly, video might provide context around pauses, hand gestures, or facial expressions. Whether remote sessions have the same Hawthorne-esque effect on participants (i.e., do they behave in a particular way because of their awareness of being observed) is unknown. For instance, it is possible that participants behave differently when observed on video as compared with an audio-only (e.g., telephone) experience, or as compared with an in person session. One implication of this possibility could involve the perceived acceptability of multitasking or split attention; not infrequently, video participants elect not to share their individual video feeds.

Common Pitfalls and Strategies for Success

Qualitative interviews and focus groups, regardless of the setting, are subject to certain pitfalls along with a project’s progression from research question to analysis and dissemination. For instance, suboptimal recruitment practices (e.g., lack of advertisement) may limit enrollment, whereas incomplete or rushed interview scripts may not elicit complete or nuanced insights from participants. For remote interviews or focus groups, distance and technology may present additional obstacles (or interact with known risks), which can threaten a project’s success ( Table 2 ). Overall, the virtual qualitative experience offers a tradeoff between participant availability and an increased number of potential distractions. Whether these potential threats to qualitative insight are worth access to participants who might be unable to attend face-to-face sessions is likely to vary across research questions and teams of investigators. In general, these pitfalls can be avoided or mitigated with careful preplanning, practice sessions, and deliberate attention to areas of risk.

Potential remote focus group pitfalls and related strategies for success

Definition of abbreviation s: IRB = institutional review board; HIPAA = Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.

Conclusions

We hope that these practical tips can help with conducting rigorous qualitative inquiry through remote focus groups or structured interviews in the era of physical and social distancing.

Supplementary Material

Supported by an APCCMPD, CHEST, and ATS Education Research Award (L.S.).

Author Contributions : Conception and design: P.G.L. Drafting of the article: L.S., J.C.R., and P.G.L. Critical revision of the article for important intellectual content: L.S., J.C.R., and P.G.L. Final approval of the article: L.S., J.C.R., and P.G.L. Administrative, technical, or logistic support: P.G.L.

Author disclosures are available with the text of this article at www.atsjournals.org .

Focus Groups in Qualitative Research

• By qualitasresearch

Focus Group Methodology: Harnessing Group Dynamics for Insightful Data

In qualitative research, focus groups stand out as a dynamic and powerful method for gathering rich, nuanced insights into human behaviors, attitudes, and perceptions. By bringing together a diverse group of participants in a structured discussion, focus groups leverage the dynamics of group interaction to uncover deeper understandings of complex topics. In this blog post, we explore the methodology of focus groups, highlighting their benefits, key components, and best practices for conducting insightful research.

Understanding Focus Group Methodology

Focus group methodology involves bringing together a small group of participants—typically between 6 to 12 individuals—for a facilitated discussion on a specific topic of interest. The goal of a focus group is to explore participants’ attitudes, beliefs, experiences, and perceptions in a collaborative and interactive setting. Unlike individual interviews, focus groups capitalize on the dynamics of group interaction to elicit diverse perspectives, stimulate discussion, and uncover shared meanings and experiences.

Key Components of Focus Group Methodology

• Participant Selection: Selecting participants who represent the target population and possess relevant perspectives is crucial for the success of a focus group. Researchers should consider demographic diversity, relevant experiences, and knowledge of the topic when recruiting participants.
• Moderator Facilitation: A skilled moderator plays a central role in guiding the focus group discussion, maintaining group dynamics, and ensuring that all participants have an opportunity to contribute. The moderator facilitates the discussion using a semi-structured interview guide, probing for insights and encouraging participation from all participants.
• Structured Discussion: The focus group discussion is structured around a set of predetermined topics or questions, designed to elicit insights into the research topic. The moderator guides the conversation, ensuring that each topic is explored in depth while allowing for spontaneous interactions and exchanges among participants.
• Group Interaction: The dynamic interaction among focus group participants is a key component of the methodology. Participants may build on each other’s ideas, challenge assumptions, and provide different perspectives, leading to a deeper understanding of the topic under investigation.
• Data Collection: Focus group discussions are typically audio or video recorded to capture the richness and complexity of group interactions. In addition to audio/video recordings, researchers may take notes, document nonverbal cues, and record observations to supplement the data collected.

Benefits of Focus Group Methodology

• Richness of Data: Focus groups generate rich, qualitative data that capture the complexity and diversity of participants’ perspectives. The interactive nature of focus group discussions allows researchers to uncover insights, nuances, and contradictions that may not emerge through other research methods.
• Exploration of Group Dynamics: Focus groups provide a unique opportunity to explore group dynamics and interpersonal relationships within a social context. By observing how participants interact with each other, researchers gain insights into social norms, shared values, and power dynamics that influence decision-making and behavior.
• Cost-Effectiveness: Compared to individual interviews, focus groups are often more cost-effective, as they allow researchers to gather data from multiple participants in a single session. This efficiency makes focus groups particularly valuable for exploring topics that benefit from group discussion and interaction.

Best Practices for Conducting Focus Groups

• Establish Ground Rules: Set clear ground rules for the focus group, including guidelines for respectful communication, confidentiality, and participation. Create a supportive and inclusive environment where all participants feel comfortable expressing their views.
• Maintain Balance and Control: Balance the discussion to ensure that all participants have an opportunity to contribute, while also maintaining control over the conversation to stay focused on the research objectives. Use probing questions, redirection, and facilitation techniques to guide the discussion as needed.
• Ensure Diversity: Aim for diversity in participant demographics, perspectives, and experiences to capture a range of viewpoints and insights. Consider factors such as age, gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and relevant characteristics when recruiting participants.
• Transcribe and Analyze Data: Transcribe focus group recordings and analyze the data using qualitative analysis techniques such as thematic analysis, coding, and interpretation. Look for patterns, themes, and insights that emerge from the data, and use these findings to inform research conclusions and recommendations.

In conclusion, focus group methodology offers a dynamic and insightful approach to qualitative research, harnessing the dynamics of group interaction to uncover rich, nuanced insights into human behavior and perceptions. By bringing together diverse participants in a structured discussion, focus groups provide researchers with a unique opportunity to explore complex topics, understand group dynamics, and generate actionable insights that inform theory, policy, and practice.

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Qualitative Research: Introducing focus groups

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• Jenny Kitzinger , research fellow a
• a Glasgow University Media Group, Department of Sociology, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8LF

This paper introduces focus group methodology, gives advice on group composition, running the groups, and analysing the results. Focus groups have advantages for researchers in the field of health and medicine: they do not discriminate against people who cannot read or write and they can encourage participation from people reluctant to be interviewed on their own or who feel they have nothing to say.

This is the fifth in a series of seven articles describing non-quantitative techniques and showing their value in health research

**FIGURE OMITTED**

Rationale and uses of focus groups

Focus groups are a form of group interview that capitalises on communication between research participants in order to generate data. Although group interviews are often used simply as a quick and convenient way to collect data from several people simultaneously, focus groups explicitly use group interaction as part of the method. This means that instead of the researcher asking each person to respond to a question in turn, people are encouraged to talk to one another: asking questions, exchanging anecdotes and commenting on each other's experiences and points of view. 1 The method is particularly useful for exploring people's knowledge and experiences and can be used to examine not only what people think but how they think and why they think that way.

Focus groups were originally used within communication studies to explore the effects of films and television programmes, 2 and are a popular method for assessing health education messages and examining public understandings of illness and of health behaviours. 3 4 5 6 7 They are widely used to examine people's experiences of disease and of health services. 8 9 and are an effective technique for exploring the attitudes and needs of staff. 10 11

The idea behind the focus group method is that group processes can help people to explore and clarify their views in ways that would be less easily accessible in a one to one interview. Group discussion is particularly appropriate when the interviewer has a series of open ended questions and wishes to encourage research participants to explore the issues of importance to them, in their own vocabulary, generating their own questions and pursuing their own priorities. When group dynamics work well the participants work alongside the researcher, taking the research in new and often unexpected directions.

Group work also helps researchers tap into the many different forms of communication that people use in day to day interaction, including jokes, anecdotes, teasing, and arguing. Gaining access to such variety of communication is useful because people's knowledge and attitudes are not entirely encapsulated in reasoned responses to direct questions. Everyday forms of communication may tell us as much, if not more, about what people know or experience. In this sense focus groups reach the parts that other methods cannot reach, revealing dimensions of understanding that often remain untapped by more conventional data collection techniques.

Some potential sampling advantages with focus groups

Do not discriminate against people who cannot read or write

Can encourage participation from those who are reluctant to be interviewed on their own (such as those intimidated by the formality and isolation of a one to one interview)

Can encourage contributions from people who feel they have nothing to say or who are deemed “unresponsive patients” (but engage in the discussion generated by other group members)

Tapping into such interpersonal communication is also important because this can highlight (sub)cultural values or group norms. Through analysing the operation of humour, consensus, and dissent and examining different types of narrative used within the group, the researcher can identify shared and common knowledge. 12 This makes focus groups a data collection technique particularly sensitive to cultural variables—which is why it is so often used in cross cultural research and work with ethnic minorities. It also makes them useful in studies examining why different sections of the population make differential use of health services. 13 14 For similar reasons focus groups are useful for studying dominant cultural values (for example, exposing dominant narratives about sexuality 15 ) and for examining work place cultures—the ways in which, for example, staff cope with working with terminally ill patients or deal with the stresses of an accident and emergency department.

The downside of such group dynamics is that the articulation of group norms may silence individual voices of dissent. The presence of other research participants also compromises the confidentiality of the research session. For example, in group discussion with old people in long term residential care I found that some residents tried to prevent others from criticising staff—becoming agitated and repeatedly interrupting with cries of “you can't complain”; “the staff couldn't possibly be nicer.” On the one hand, such interactions highlighted certain aspects of these people's experiences. In this case, it showed some resident's fear of being “punished” by staff for, in the words of one woman, “being cheeky.” On the other hand, such group dynamics raise ethical issues (especially when the work is with “captive” populations) and may limit the usefulness of the data for certain purposes (Scottish Health Feedback, unpublished report).

However, it should not be assumed that groups are, by definition, inhibiting relative to the supposed privacy of an interview situation or that focus groups are inappropriate when researching sensitive topics. Quite the opposite may be true. Group work can actively facilitate the discussion of taboo topics because the less inhibited members of the group break the ice for shyer participants. Participants can also provide mutual support in expressing feelings that are common to their group but which they consider to deviate from mainstream culture (or the assumed culture of the researcher). This is particularly important when researching stigmatised or taboo experiences (for example, bereavement or sexual violence).

Focus group methods are also popular with those conducting action research and those concerned to “empower” research participants because the participants can become an active part of the process of analysis. Indeed, group participants may actually develop particular perspectives as a consequence of talking with other people who have similar experiences. For example, group dynamics can allow for a shift from personal, self blaming psychological explanations (“I'm stupid not to have understood what the doctor was telling me”; “I should have been stronger—I should have asked the right questions”) to the exploration of structural solutions (“If we've all felt confused about what we've been told maybe having a leaflet would help, or what about being able to take away a tape recording of the consultation?”).

Some researchers have also noted that group discussions can generate more critical comments than interviews. 16 For example, Geis et al, in their study of the lovers of people with AIDS, found that there were more angry comments about the medical community in the group discussions than in the individual interviews: “perhaps the synergism of the group ‘kept the anger going’ and allowed each participant to reinforce another's vented feelings of frustration and rage. 17 A method that facilitates the expression of criticism and the exploration of different types of solutions is invaluable if the aim of research is to improve services. Such a method is especially appropriate when working with particular disempowered patient populations who are often reluctant to give negative feedback or may feel that any problems result from their own inadequacies. 19

Conducting a focus group study

Sampling and group composition.

Focus group studies can consist of anything between half a dozen to over fifty groups, depending on the aims of the project and the resources available. Most studies involve just a few groups, and some combine this method with other data collection techniques. Focus group discussion of a questionnaire is ideal for testing the phrasing of questions and is also useful in explaining or exploring survey results. 19 20

Although it may be possible to work with a representative sample of a small population, most focus group studies use a theoretical sampling model (explained earlier in this series 21 ) whereby participants are selected to reflect a range of the total study population or to test particular hypotheses. Imaginative sampling is crucial. Most people now recognise class or ethnicity as important variables, and it is also worth considering other variables. For example, when exploring women's experiences of maternity care or cervical smears it may be advisable to include groups of lesbians or women who were sexually abused as children. 22

Most researchers recommend aiming for homogeneity within each group in order to capitalise on people's shared experiences. However, it can also be advantageous to bring together a diverse group (for example, from a range of professions) to maximise exploration of different perspectives within a group setting. However, it is important to be aware of how hierarchy within the group may affect the data (a nursing auxiliary, for example, is likely to be inhibited by the presence of a consultant from the same hospital).

The groups can be “naturally occurring” (for example, people who work together) or may be drawn together specifically for the research. Using preexisting groups allows observation of fragments of interactions that approximate to naturally occurring data (such as might have been collected by participant observation). An additional advantage is that friends and colleagues can relate each other's comments to incidents in their shared daily lives. They may challenge each other on contradictions between what they profess to believe and how they actually behave (for example, “how about that time you didn't use a glove while taking blood from a patient?”).

It would be naive to assume that group data are by definition “natural” in the sense that such interactions would have occurred without the group being convened for this purpose. Rather than assuming that sessions inevitably reflect everyday interactions (although sometimes they will), the group should be used to encourage people to engage with one another, formulate their ideas, and draw out the cognitive structures which previously have not been articulated.

Finally, it is important to consider the appropriateness of group work for different study populations and to think about how to overcome potential difficulties. Group work can facilitate collecting information from people who cannot read or write. The “safety in numbers factor” may also encourage the participation of those who are wary of an interviewer or who are anxious about talking. 23 However, group work can compound difficulties in communication if each person has a different disability. In the study assessing residential care for the elderly, I conducted a focus group that included one person who had impaired hearing, another with senile dementia, and a third with partial paralysis affecting her speech. This severely restricted interaction between research participants and confirmed some of the staff's predictions about the limitations of group work with this population. However, such problems could be resolved by thinking more carefully about the composition of the group, and sometimes group participants could help to translate for each other. It should also be noted that some of the old people who might have been unable to sustain a one to one interview were able to take part in the group, contributing intermittently. Even some residents who staff had suggested should be excluded from the research because they were “unresponsive” eventually responded to the lively conversations generated by their coresidents and were able to contribute their point of view. Communication difficulties should not rule out group work, but must be considered as a factor.

RUNNING THE GROUPS

Sessions should be relaxed: a comfortable setting, refreshments, and sitting round in a circle will help to establish the right atmosphere. The ideal group size is between four and eight people. Sessions may last one to two hours (or extend into a whole afternoon or a series of meetings). The facilitator should explain that the aim of focus groups is to encourage people to talk to each other rather than to address themselves to the researcher. The researcher may take a back seat at first, allowing for a type of “structured eavesdropping.” 24 Later on in the session, however, the researcher can adopt a more interventionist style: urging debate to continue beyond the stage it might otherwise have ended and encouraging the group to discuss the inconsistencies both between participants and within their own thinking. Disagreements within groups can be used to encourage participants to elucidate their point of view and to clarify why they think as they do. Differences between individual one off interviews have to be analysed by the researchers through armchair theorising; differences between members of focus groups should be explored in situ with the help of the research participants.

The facilitator may also use a range of group exercises. A common exercise consists of presenting the group with a series of statements on large cards. The group members are asked collectively to sort these cards into different piles depending on, for example, their degree of agreement or disagreement with that point of view or the importance they assign to that particular aspect of service. For example, I have used such cards to explore public understandings of HIV transmission (placing statements about “types” of people into different risk categories), old people's experiences of residential care (assigning degrees of importance to different statements about the quality of their care), and midwive's views of their professional responsibilities (placing a series of statements about midwive's roles along an agree-disagree continuum). Such exercises encourage participants to concentrate on one another (rather than on the group facilitator) and force them to explain their different perspectives. The final layout of the cards is less important than the discussion that it generates. 25 Researchers may also use such exercises as a way of checking out their own assessment of what has emerged from the group. In this case it is best to take along a series of blank cards and fill them out only towards the end of the session, using statements generated during the course of the discussion. Finally, it may be beneficial to present research participants with a brief questionnaire, or the opportunity to speak to the researcher privately, giving each one the opportunity to record private comments after the group session has been completed.

Ideally the group discussions should be tape recorded and transcribed. If this is not possible then it is vital to take careful notes and researchers may find it useful to involve the group in recording key issues on a flip chart.

ANALYSIS AND WRITING UP

Analysing focus groups is basically the same as analysing any other qualitative self report data. 21 26 At the very least, the researcher draws together and compares discussions of similar themes and examines how these relate to the variables within the sample population. In general, it is not appropriate to give percentages in reports of focus group data, and it is important to try to distinguish between individual opinions expressed in spite of the group from the actual group consensus. As in all qualitative analysis, deviant case analysis is important—that is, attention must be given to minority opinions and examples that do not fit with the researcher's overall theory.

The only distinct feature of working with focus group data is the need to indicate the impact of the group dynamic and analyse the sessions in ways that take full advantage of the interaction between research participants. In coding the script of a group discussion, it is worth using special categories for certain types of narrative, such as jokes and anecdotes, and types of interaction, such as “questions,” “deferring to the opinion of others,” “censorship,” or “changes of mind.” A focus group research report that is true to its data should also usually include at least some illustrations of the talk between participants, rather than simply presenting isolated quotations taken out of context.

Tapping into interpersonal communication can highlight cultural values or group norms

This paper has presented the factors to consider when designing or evaluating a focus group study. In particular, it has drawn attention to the overt exploitation and exploration of interactions in focus group discussion. Interaction between participants can be used to achieve seven main aims:

To highlight the respondent's attitudes, priorities, language, and framework of understanding;

To encourage research participants to generate and explore their own questions and develop their own analysis of common experiences;

To encourage a variety of communication from participants—tapping into a wide range and form of understanding;

To help to identify group norms and cultural values;

To provide insight into the operation of group social processes in the articulation of knowledge (for example, through the examination of what information is censured or muted within the group);

To encourage open conversation about embarrassing subjects and to permit the expression of criticism;

Generally to facilitate the expression of ideas and experiences that might be left underdeveloped in an interview and to illuminate the research participant's perspectives through the debate within the group.

Group data are neither more nor less authentic than data collected by other methods, but focus groups can be the most appropriate method for researching particular types of question. Direct observation may be more appropriate for studies of social roles and formal organisations 27 but focus groups are particularly suited to the study of attitudes and experiences. Interviews may be more appropriate for tapping into individual biographies, 27 but focus groups are more suitable for examining how knowledge, and more importantly, ideas, develop and operate within a given cultural context. Questionnaires are more appropriate for obtaining quantitative information and explaining how many people hold a certain (pre-defined) opinion; focus groups are better for exploring exactly how those opinions are constructed. Thus while surveys repeatedly identify gaps between health knowledge and health behaviour, only qualitative methods, such as focus groups, can actually fill these gaps and explain why these occur.

Focus groups are not an easy option. The data they generate can be as cumbersome as they are complex. Yet the method is basically straightforward and need not be intimidating for either the researcher or the researched. Perhaps the very best way of working out whether or not focus groups might be appropriate in any particular study is to try them out in practice.

Further reading

Morgan D. Focus groups as qualitative research. London: Sage, 1988.

Kreuger R. Focus groups: a practical guide for applied research. London: Sage, 1988.

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How quantitative methods can supplement a qualitative approach when working with focus groups

(Related post:  How focus groups informed our study about nationalism and international engagement in the U.S. and UK )

Pew Research Center often collects data through nationally representative surveys, and we use focus groups to supplement those findings  in interesting ways  and  inform the questionnaire design process  for future work.

When conducting focus groups, we typically use  qualitative  methods to understand what our participants are thinking. For example, we tend to hand-code key themes that come up in discussions. But in our latest focus group project, we wondered if we could use  quantitative  methods, such as topic models, to save time while still gaining valuable insights about questionnaire development.

Some of these methods worked well, others less so. But all of them helped us understand how to approach text-based data in innovative ways. In general, we found that quantitative analysis of focus group transcripts can generate quick, text-based summary findings and help with questionnaire development. But it proved less useful for mimicking traditional focus group analysis and reporting, at least with the specific quantitative techniques we tried.

In the fall of 2019, the Center held  focus groups in the United States and United Kingdom  to talk with people about their  attitudes toward globalization . These discussions focused on three different contexts: participants’ local community, their nation of residence (U.S. or UK) and the international community.

After conducting 26 focus groups across the two nations, we transcribed the discussions into separate files for each group. For our quantitative analysis, we combined all of the files into one .csv document where each participant’s responses — whether one word or a short paragraph — corresponded to one row of the spreadsheet. To prepare the text for analysis, we  tokenized the data , or split each line into individual words, and further cleaned it by removing punctuation and applying  other preprocessing techniques  often used in natural language processing.

Preliminary quantitative findings

As a first step, we conducted a basic exploration of focus group respondents’ vocabulary. Several words frequently emerged among participants in both the U.S. and UK, including “country,” “live” and “feel,” all of which appeared in at least 250 responses across groups in each country. (This analysis excludes pronouns, articles and prepositions that are common in all spoken English, such as “he,” “she,” “they,” “a,” “the,” “of,” “to,” “from,” etc. Names of cities where focus groups took place and text from group moderators are also excluded from analysis.)

We also found that several words and phrases distinguished the U.S. focus groups from those in the UK. Terms like “dollar” and “Republican” were among the most common terms only used by the American groups, while the UK’s national health system (“NHS”) and legislative body (“parliament”) appeared frequently in the British groups but were never used by Americans.

As an exploratory tool, this kind of analysis can point to linguistic distinctions that stray from the predetermined topics included in a focus group guide. For instance, while we asked the groups in oblique ways about what it takes to be American or British, respectively, we never explicitly asked about immigration or minority groups in their country. Nonetheless, “African Americans” and “Native Americans” exclusively arose in the U.S. groups, while “Polish” and “mixed race” people were discussed in the UK. This told us that it might be worthwhile for future survey questionnaires to explore topics related to race and ethnicity. At the same time, it’s possible that our focus groups may have framed the conversation in a unique way, based on the participants’ racial, ethnic or immigration background.

Word correlations

We used another computational tool,  pairwise correlation , for some exploratory text analysis that measures how often words co-occur compared with how often they are used separately. Using three terms related to key themes that the focus groups were designed to study — “global,” “proud” and “immigrant” — we can get a sense of how focus group participants talked about these themes simply by identifying other words that were positively correlated with these topical terms. By further filtering these other terms to those that were mainly used in just one country, we can capture unique aspects of American and British views on global issues, national pride and immigration.

Both British and American participants discussed their nationalities when the conversation turned to pride. For instance, the words that most commonly appeared alongside “proud” in each country were “British” and “American,” respectively. (We considered the words “America” and “American” as separate terms, rather than variants of the same term.) Though “proud” among Britons often involved discussion of the word “flag,” “proud” in the U.S. correlated with “military.” Of course, correlation alone does not reflect whether these discussions had positive, negative or neutral connotations.

Discussions about migration and global issues — including “globalization,” which we shortened to “global” in our text processing — also varied across the two countries. When U.S. respondents used the word “immigrant,” they were also likely to use words like “illegal,” “legal,” “come” and “take.” By comparison, Britons who used the term were liable to do so alongside terms like “doctor” or “population.”

British participants used the word “global” alongside terms related to business (“company,” “industry,” “cheaper”) and global warming (“climate”). In the U.S., on the other hand, the discussion about globalization and immigration often accompanied terms like “hurt,” “China,” “benefit” and “take.”

Pew Research Center has conducted several surveys on the topics of  migration ,  climate change  and  views of China , among others. Our focus groups confirmed that these issues play a part in how individuals see their country’s place in the world, though they also highlight that, in different nations, people approach these topics in distinct ways that may not be immediately evident in traditional survey questions.

Topic models

In recent years, the Center has explored the use of  topic models  for text-based data analysis. This method finds groups of words that appear alongside one another in a large number of documents (here, focus group responses), and in the process finds topics or themes that appear across multiple documents. In our attempt to quantitatively analyze this set of focus group transcripts, we had somewhat limited success with this approach.

On first pass, we used a probabilistic topic model called  latent Dirichlet allocation , or LDA. But LDA often created topics that lacked coherence or split the same concept among multiple topics.

Next we turned to  structural topic models  (STM), a method that groups words from documents into topics but also incorporates metadata about documents into its classification process. Here, we included a country variable as one such “structural” variable. STM allowed us to set the number of topics in advance but otherwise created the topics without our input. (Models like these are often called “unsupervised machine learning.”) We ran several iterations of the model with varying numbers of potential topics before settling on the final number.

( For more on the Center’s use of topic modeling, see:  Making sense of topic models )

Our research team started at 15 topics and then increased the number in increments of five, up to 50 topics. With fewer than 35 topics, many word groupings seemed to encompass more than one topic. With more than 35 topics, several topics that appeared distinct began to split apart across topics. There was no magic number, and researchers with the same data could reasonably come to different conclusions. Ultimately, we settled on a model with 35 topics.

Some of these topics clearly coalesced around a certain concept. For instance, we decided to call Topic 11 “Brexit” because its most common terms included “vote,” “leave,” “Brexit,” “party” and “referendum.” But while this topic and others appeared quite clear conceptually, that was not uniformly the case. For example, one topic looked as though it could relate to crime, but some terms in that topic (e.g., “eat” and “Christian”) did not fit that concept as neatly.

We named some of the topics based on the themes we saw — “Legal immigration,” for example, and “European trade.” But as other researchers have noted, that  does not necessarily mean  the word groupings are  definitely  about that theme. In this case, we used topic models as an exploratory analysis tool, and further research would be needed to validate each one with a higher degree of certainty and  remove conceptually spurious words .

Another important consideration is that topic models sometimes group topics differently than researchers might be thinking about them. For that reason, topic models shouldn’t be used as a measurement instrument unless researchers take extra care to validate them and confirm their assumptions about what the models are measuring. In this project, the topic models simply served to inform questionnaire development for future multinational surveys. For example, Topic 12 in this experiment touches on issues of how spoken language relates to national identity, and future surveys may include a question that addresses this concept.

One helpful aspect of the topic model approach is that it allowed us to see which topics were more prevalent in the U.S. or UK, or if they appeared in both. American respondents, for example, more frequently discussed topics related to the U.S. and legal immigration, while British respondents more often discussed topics related to Brexit and trade in Europe. Topics that researchers coded as “language” and “housing” appeared with relatively the same prevalence in both countries.

However, characteristics of the data and problems with initially interpreting topics can cause further difficulties in this analysis. For instance, a topic we labeled “protection” was much more prevalent in American focus group discussions. That might have led us to assume that Americans are more concerned than their British counterparts with safety-related issues. But the focus groups we conducted were not nationally representative of the populations of either country, so we couldn’t draw this type of conclusion from the analysis. Additionally, because the topic itself might include words that have no relation to the concept of protection, researchers would likely need to consult the full transcripts that mention these topics — as well as external resources — before using this for questionnaire development.

Text-based classification

Qualitative coding of focus group transcripts is a resource-intensive process. Researchers who carried out the qualitative analysis of these transcripts considered using a  Qualitative Data Analysis Software, or QDAS . These are tools designed for qualitative researchers to analyze all forms of qualitative data, including transcripts, manually assigning text into categories, linking themes and visualizing findings.  Many disciplines  employ these methods for successfully analyzing qualitative data.

We wondered if quantitative methods would let us achieve similar ends, so we explored ways to potentially streamline procedures with quantitative tools to minimize the time and labor needed to classify text into topics of interest. Unlike with topic models, a text-based classification model uses predetermined topics, or variables, for the algorithm to classify. (This falls into a broader category called “ supervised machine learning .”) A successful classification algorithm would mean that we could avoid having to read every transcript to determine what content belonged to certain groups, or having to make the kind of subjective judgments that are necessary with qualitative software.

We used an  extreme gradient boosting model  (XGBoost) to classify focus group responses as relevant or not relevant to three different topics: immigration, the economy and the local community. We chose these topics because each emerged in the course of the focus group discussion — some as overt topics from prompts in the focus group guide (e.g., the local community), others as organic themes when people discussed their neighborhoods, national identity and issues of globalization (e.g., immigration and the economy).

Two of our researchers coded the same set of randomly selected focus group responses, about 6% of approximately 13,000 responses from all groups combined. They used a 1 to indicate the response was about a topic and 0 to show it was not. From the set of coded responses, each of the three topics appeared at least 70 times.

The model’s performance proved lackluster. When we compared the model to our hand coding, the accuracy rate ranged from 85% to 93%. But it also failed to identify the topic in most cases where it occurred, meaning that much of the accuracy was driven by matching on instances coded as 0 (i.e. the response is  not  about that topic) since 0 was much more prevalent across categories. One can liken this to a test for a rare disease. If only 1% of people in a population have a disease and the test returns only negative results to all people tested, the accuracy would be high — 99% of tests would be correct. But the test would have little utility since there would be no positive matches in instances where people were actually infected.

Using a measure similar to accuracy called the  kappa , a statistic that examines agreement while adjusting for chance agreement, we found that the classifier performed poorly with a kappa of no more than .37 for two of our topics. In addition, we looked at the models’  precision and recall , metrics that help evaluate the effectiveness of a model. Precision ranged from 20% to 100%, while recall ranged from 4% to 27% among two of the topics. On the third topic — the local community — the model assigned zero to all cases.

The quantitative techniques that we explored in this post do not completely replace a traditional approach to qualitative research with focus group data. Using a quantitative approach, however, can aid in exploratory analysis and refining questionnaire development without having to attend every group in person or read through hundreds of pages of text. The tools we used are far from exhaustive, and as the Center continues to use focus groups as part of the research process, we are hopeful that we can learn more about how to employ innovative techniques in our analysis.

This post benefited from feedback provided by the following Pew Research Center staff: Dennis Quinn, Patrick van Kessel and Adam Hughes.

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Chapter 12. Focus Groups

Introduction.

Focus groups are a particular and special form of interviewing in which the interview asks focused questions of a group of persons, optimally between five and eight. This group can be close friends, family members, or complete strangers. They can have a lot in common or nothing in common. Unlike one-on-one interviews, which can probe deeply, focus group questions are narrowly tailored (“focused”) to a particular topic and issue and, with notable exceptions, operate at the shallow end of inquiry. For example, market researchers use focus groups to find out why groups of people choose one brand of product over another. Because focus groups are often used for commercial purposes, they sometimes have a bit of a stigma among researchers. This is unfortunate, as the focus group is a helpful addition to the qualitative researcher’s toolkit. Focus groups explicitly use group interaction to assist in the data collection. They are particularly useful as supplements to one-on-one interviews or in data triangulation. They are sometimes used to initiate areas of inquiry for later data collection methods. This chapter describes the main forms of focus groups, lays out some key differences among those forms, and provides guidance on how to manage focus group interviews.

Focus Groups: What Are They and When to Use Them

As interviews, focus groups can be helpfully distinguished from one-on-one interviews. The purpose of conducting a focus group is not to expand the number of people one interviews: the focus group is a different entity entirely. The focus is on the group and its interactions and evaluations rather than on the individuals in that group. If you want to know how individuals understand their lives and their individual experiences, it is best to ask them individually. If you want to find out how a group forms a collective opinion about something (whether a product or an event or an experience), then conducting a focus group is preferable. The power of focus groups resides in their being both focused and oriented to the group . They are best used when you are interested in the shared meanings of a group or how people discuss a topic publicly or when you want to observe the social formation of evaluations. The interaction of the group members is an asset in this method of data collection. If your questions would not benefit from group interaction, this is a good indicator that you should probably use individual interviews (chapter 11). Avoid using focus groups when you are interested in personal information or strive to uncover deeply buried beliefs or personal narratives. In general, you want to avoid using focus groups when the subject matter is polarizing, as people are less likely to be honest in a group setting. There are a few exceptions, such as when you are conducting focus groups with people who are not strangers and/or you are attempting to probe deeply into group beliefs and evaluations. But caution is warranted in these cases. [1]

As with interviewing in general, there are many forms of focus groups. Focus groups are widely used by nonresearchers, so it is important to distinguish these uses from the research focus group. Businesses routinely employ marketing focus groups to test out products or campaigns. Jury consultants employ “mock” jury focus groups, testing out legal case strategies in advance of actual trials. Organizations of various kinds use focus group interviews for program evaluation (e.g., to gauge the effectiveness of a diversity training workshop). The research focus group has many similarities with all these uses but is specifically tailored to a research (rather than applied) interest. The line between application and research use can be blurry, however. To take the case of evaluating the effectiveness of a diversity training workshop, the same interviewer may be conducting focus group interviews both to provide specific actionable feedback for the workshop leaders (this is the application aspect) and to learn more about how people respond to diversity training (an interesting research question with theoretically generalizable results).

When forming a focus group, there are two different strategies for inclusion. Diversity focus groups include people with diverse perspectives and experiences. This helps the researcher identify commonalities across this diversity and/or note interactions across differences. What kind of diversity to capture depends on the research question, but care should be taken to ensure that those participating are not set up for attack from other participants. This is why many warn against diversity focus groups, especially around politically sensitive topics. The other strategy is to build a convergence focus group , which includes people with similar perspectives and experiences. These are particularly helpful for identifying shared patterns and group consensus. The important thing is to closely consider who will be invited to participate and what the composition of the group will be in advance. Some review of sampling techniques (see chapter 5) may be helpful here.

Moderating a focus group can be a challenge (more on this below). For this reason, confining your group to no more than eight participants is recommended. You probably want at least four persons to capture group interaction. Fewer than four participants can also make it more difficult for participants to remain (relatively) anonymous—there is less of a group in which to hide. There are exceptions to these recommendations. You might want to conduct a focus group with a naturally occurring group, as in the case of a family of three, a social club of ten, or a program of fifteen. When the persons know one another, the problems of too few for anonymity don’t apply, and although ten to fifteen can be unwieldy to manage, there are strategies to make this possible. If you really are interested in this group’s dynamic (not just a set of random strangers’ dynamic), then you will want to include all its members or as many as are willing and able to participate.

There are many benefits to conducting focus groups, the first of which is their interactivity. Participants can make comparisons, can elaborate on what has been voiced by another, and can even check one another, leading to real-time reevaluations. This last benefit is one reason they are sometimes employed specifically for consciousness raising or building group cohesion. This form of data collection has an activist application when done carefully and appropriately. It can be fun, especially for the participants. Additionally, what does not come up in a focus group, especially when expected by the researcher, can be very illuminating.

Many of these benefits do incur costs, however. The multiplicity of voices in a good focus group interview can be overwhelming both to moderate and later to transcribe. Because of the focused nature, deep probing is not possible (or desirable). You might only get superficial thinking or what people are willing to put out there publicly. If that is what you are interested in, good. If you want deeper insight, you probably will not get that here. Relatedly, extreme views are often suppressed, and marginal viewpoints are unspoken or, if spoken, derided. You will get the majority group consensus and very little of minority viewpoints. Because people will be engaged with one another, there is the possibility of cut-off sentences, making it even more likely to hear broad brush themes and not detailed specifics. There really is very little opportunity for specific follow-up questions to individuals. Reading over a transcript, you may be frustrated by avenues of inquiry that were foreclosed early.

Some people expect that conducting focus groups is an efficient form of data collection. After all, you get to hear from eight people instead of just one in the same amount of time! But this is a serious misunderstanding. What you hear in a focus group is one single group interview or discussion. It is not the same thing at all as conducting eight single one-hour interviews. Each focus group counts as “one.” Most likely, you will need to conduct several focus groups, and you can design these as comparisons to one another. For example, the American Sociological Association (ASA) Task Force on First-Generation and Working-Class Persons in Sociology began its study of the impact of class in sociology by conducting five separate focus groups with different groups of sociologists: graduate students, faculty (in general), community college faculty, faculty of color, and a racially diverse group of students and faculty. Even though the total number of participants was close to forty, the “number” of cases was five. It is highly recommended that when employing focus groups, you plan on composing more than one and at least three. This allows you to take note of and potentially discount findings from a group with idiosyncratic dynamics, such as where a particularly dominant personality silences all other voices. In other words, putting all your eggs into a single focus group basket is not a good idea.

How to Conduct a Focus Group Interview/Discussion

Advance preparations.

Once you have selected your focus groups and set a date and time, there are a few things you will want to plan out before meeting.

As with interviews, you begin by creating an interview (or discussion) guide. Where a good one-on-one interview guide should include ten to twelve main topics with possible prompts and follow-ups (see the example provided in chapter 11), the focus group guide should be more narrowly tailored to a single focus or topic area. For example, a focus might be “How students coped with online learning during the pandemic,” and a series of possible questions would be drafted that would help prod participants to think about and discuss this topic. These questions or discussion prompts can be creative and may include stimulus materials (watching a video or hearing a story) or posing hypotheticals. For example, Cech ( 2021 ) has a great hypothetical, asking what a fictional character should do: keep his boring job in computers or follow his passion and open a restaurant. You can ask a focus group this question and see what results—how the group comes to define a “good job,” what questions they ask about the hypothetical (How boring is his job really? Does he hate getting up in the morning, or is it more of an everyday tedium? What kind of financial support will he have if he quits? Does he even know how to run a restaurant?), and how they reach a consensus or create clear patterns of disagreement are all interesting findings that can be generated through this technique.

As with the above example (“What should Joe do?”), it is best to keep the questions you ask simple and easily understood by everyone. Thinking about the sequence of the questions/prompts is important, just as it is in conducting any interviews.

Avoid embarrassing questions. Always leave an out for the “I have a friend who X” response rather than pushing people to divulge personal information. Asking “How do you think students coped?” is better than “How did you cope?” Chances are, some participants will begin talking about themselves without you directly asking them to do so, but allowing impersonal responses here is good. The group itself will determine how deep and how personal it wants to go. This is not the time or place to push anyone out of their comfort zone!

Of course, people have different levels of comfort talking publicly about certain topics. You will have provided detailed information to your focus group participants beforehand and secured consent. But even so, the conversation may take a turn that makes someone uncomfortable. Be on the lookout for this, and remind everyone of their ability to opt out—to stay silent or to leave if necessary. Rather than call attention to anyone in this way, you also want to let everyone know they are free to walk around—to get up and get coffee (more on this below) or use the restroom or just step out of the room to take a call. Of course, you don’t really want anyone to do any of these things, and chances are everyone will stay seated during the hour, but you should leave this “out” for those who need it.

Have copies of consent forms and any supplemental questionnaire (e.g., demographic information) you are using prepared in advance. Ask a friend or colleague to assist you on the day of the focus group. They can be responsible for making sure the recording equipment is functioning and may even take some notes on body language while you are moderating the discussion. Order food (coffee or snacks) for the group. This is important! Having refreshments will be appreciated by your participants and really damps down the anxiety level. Bring name tags and pens. Find a quiet welcoming space to convene. Often this is a classroom where you move chairs into a circle, but public libraries often have meeting rooms that are ideal places for community members to meet. Be sure that the space allows for food.

Researcher Note

When I was designing my research plan for studying activist groups, I consulted one of the best qualitative researchers I knew, my late friend Raphael Ezekiel, author of The Racist Mind . He looked at my plan to hand people demographic surveys at the end of the meetings I planned to observe and said, “This methodology is missing one crucial thing.” “What?” I asked breathlessly, anticipating some technical insider tip. “Chocolate!” he answered. “They’ll be tired, ready to leave when you ask them to fill something out. Offer an incentive, and they will stick around.” It worked! As the meetings began to wind down, I would whip some bags of chocolate candies out of my bag. Everyone would stare, and I’d say they were my thank-you gift to anyone who filled out my survey. Once I learned to include some sugar-free candies for diabetics, my typical response rate was 100 percent. (And it gave me an additional class-culture data point by noticing who chose which brand; sure enough, Lindt balls went faster at majority professional-middle-class groups, and Hershey’s minibars went faster at majority working-class groups.)

—Betsy Leondar-Wright, author of Missing Class , coauthor of The Color of Wealth , associate professor of sociology at Lasell University, and coordinator of staffing at the Mission Project for Class Action

During the Focus Group

As people arrive, greet them warmly, and make sure you get a signed consent form (if not in advance). If you are using name tags, ask them to fill one out and wear it. Let them get food and find a seat and do a little chatting, as they might wish. Once seated, many focus group moderators begin with a relevant icebreaker. This could be simple introductions that have some meaning or connection to the focus. In the case of the ASA task force focus groups discussed above, we asked people to introduce themselves and where they were working/studying (“Hi, I’m Allison, and I am a professor at Oregon State University”). You will also want to introduce yourself and the study in simple terms. They’ve already read the consent form, but you would be surprised at how many people ignore the details there or don’t remember them. Briefly talking about the study and then letting people ask any follow-up questions lays a good foundation for a successful discussion, as it reminds everyone what the point of the event is.

Focus groups should convene for between forty-five and ninety minutes. Of course, you must tell the participants the time you have chosen in advance, and you must promptly end at the time allotted. Do not make anyone nervous by extending the time. Let them know at the outset that you will adhere to this timeline. This should reduce the nervous checking of phones and watches and wall clocks as the end time draws near.

Set ground rules and expectations for the group discussion. My preference is to begin with a general question and let whoever wants to answer it do so, but other moderators expect each person to answer most questions. Explain how much cross-talk you will permit (or encourage). Again, my preference is to allow the group to pick up the ball and run with it, so I will sometimes keep my head purposefully down so that they engage with one another rather than me, but I have seen other moderators take a much more engaged position. Just be clear at the outset about what your expectations are. You may or may not want to explain how the group should deal with those who would dominate the conversation. Sometimes, simply stating at the outset that all voices should be heard is enough to create a more egalitarian discourse. Other times, you will have to actively step in to manage (moderate) the exchange to allow more voices to be heard. Finally, let people know they are free to get up to get more coffee or leave the room as they need (if you are OK with this). You may ask people to refrain from using their phones during the duration of the discussion. That is up to you too.

Either before or after the introductions (your call), begin recording the discussion with their collective permission and knowledge . If you have brought a friend or colleague to assist you (as you should), have them attend to the recording. Explain the role of your colleague to the group (e.g., they will monitor the recording and will take short notes throughout to help you when you read the transcript later; they will be a silent observer).

Once the focus group gets going, it may be difficult to keep up. You will need to make a lot of quick decisions during the discussion about whether to intervene or let it go unguided. Only you really care about the research question or topic, so only you will really know when the discussion is truly off topic. However you handle this, keep your “participation” to a minimum. According to Lune and Berg ( 2018:95 ), the moderator’s voice should show up in the transcript no more than 10 percent of the time. By the way, you should also ask your research assistant to take special note of the “intensity” of the conversation, as this may be lost in a transcript. If there are people looking overly excited or tapping their feet with impatience or nodding their heads in unison, you want some record of this for future analysis.

I’m not sure why this stuck with me, but I thought it would be interesting to share. When I was reviewing my plan for conducting focus groups with one of my committee members, he suggested that I give the participants their gift cards first. The incentive for participating in the study was a gift card of their choice, and typical processes dictate that participants must complete the study in order to receive their gift card. However, my committee member (who is Native himself) suggested I give it at the beginning. As a qualitative researcher, you build trust with the people you engage with. You are asking them to share their stories with you, their intimate moments, their vulnerabilities, their time. Not to mention that Native people are familiar with being academia’s subjects of interest with little to no benefit to be returned to them. To show my appreciation, one of the things I could do was to give their gifts at the beginning, regardless of whether or not they completed participating.

—Susanna Y. Park, PhD, mixed-methods researcher in public health and author of “How Native Women Seek Support as Survivors of Intimate Partner Violence: A Mixed-Methods Study”

After the Focus Group

Your “data” will be either fieldnotes taken during the focus group or, more desirably, transcripts of the recorded exchange. If you do not have permission to record the focus group discussion, make sure you take very clear notes during the exchange and then spend a few hours afterward filling them in as much as possible, creating a rich memo to yourself about what you saw and heard and experienced, including any notes about body language and interactions. Ideally, however, you will have recorded the discussion. It is still a good idea to spend some time immediately after the conclusion of the discussion to write a memo to yourself with all the things that may not make it into the written record (e.g., body language and interactions). This is also a good time to journal about or create a memo with your initial researcher reactions to what you saw, noting anything of particular interest that you want to come back to later on (e.g., “It was interesting that no one thought Joe should quit his job, but in the other focus group, half of the group did. I wonder if this has something to do with the fact that all the participants were first-generation college students. I should pay attention to class background here.”).

Please thank each of your participants in a follow-up email or text. Let them know you appreciated their time and invite follow-up questions or comments.

One of the difficult things about focus group transcripts is keeping speakers distinct. Eventually, you are going to be using pseudonyms for any publication, but for now, you probably want to know who said what. You can assign speaker numbers (“Speaker 1,” “Speaker 2”) and connect those identifications with particular demographic information in a separate document. Remember to clearly separate actual identifications (as with consent forms) to prevent breaches of anonymity. If you cannot identify a speaker when transcribing, you can write, “Unidentified Speaker.” Once you have your transcript(s) and memos and fieldnotes, you can begin analyzing the data (chapters 18 and 19).

Advanced: Focus Groups on Sensitive Topics

Throughout this chapter, I have recommended against raising sensitive topics in focus group discussions. As an introvert myself, I find the idea of discussing personal topics in a group disturbing, and I tend to avoid conducting these kinds of focus groups. And yet I have actually participated in focus groups that do discuss personal information and consequently have been of great value to me as a participant (and researcher) because of this. There are even some researchers who believe this is the best use of focus groups ( de Oliveira 2011 ). For example, Jordan et al. ( 2007 ) argue that focus groups should be considered most useful for illuminating locally sanctioned ways of talking about sensitive issues. So although I do not recommend the beginning qualitative researcher dive into deep waters before they can swim, this section will provide some guidelines for conducting focus groups on sensitive topics. To my mind, these are a minimum set of guidelines to follow when dealing with sensitive topics.

First, be transparent about the place of sensitive topics in your focus group. If the whole point of your focus group is to discuss something sensitive, such as how women gain support after traumatic sexual assault events, make this abundantly clear in your consent form and recruiting materials. It is never appropriate to blindside participants with sensitive or threatening topics .

Second, create a confidentiality form (figure 12.2) for each participant to sign. These forms carry no legal weight, but they do create an expectation of confidentiality for group members.

In order to respect the privacy of all participants in [insert name of study here], all parties are asked to read and sign the statement below. If you have any reason not to sign, please discuss this with [insert your name], the researcher of this study, I, ________________________, agree to maintain the confidentiality of the information discussed by all participants and researchers during the focus group discussion.

Signature: _____________________________ Date: _____________________

Researcher’s Signature:___________________ Date:______________________

Figure 12.2 Confidentiality Agreement of Focus Group Participants

Third, provide abundant space for opting out of the discussion. Participants are, of course, always permitted to refrain from answering a question or to ask for the recording to be stopped. It is important that focus group members know they have these rights during the group discussion as well. And if you see a person who is looking uncomfortable or like they want to hide, you need to step in affirmatively and remind everyone of these rights.

Finally, if things go “off the rails,” permit yourself the ability to end the focus group. Debrief with each member as necessary.

Further Readings

Barbour, Rosaline. 2018. Doing Focus Groups . 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE. Written by a medical sociologist based in the UK, this is a good how-to guide for conducting focus groups.

Gibson, Faith. 2007. “Conducting Focus Groups with Children and Young People: Strategies for Success.” Journal of Research in Nursing 12(5):473–483. As the title suggests, this article discusses both methodological and practical concerns when conducting focus groups with children and young people and offers some tips and strategies for doing so effectively.

Hopkins, Peter E. 2007. “Thinking Critically and Creatively about Focus Groups.” Area 39(4):528–535. Written from the perspective of critical/human geography, Hopkins draws on examples from his own work conducting focus groups with Muslim men. Useful for thinking about positionality.

Jordan, Joanne, Una Lynch, Marianne Moutray, Marie-Therese O’Hagan, Jean Orr, Sandra Peake, and John Power. 2007. “Using Focus Groups to Research Sensitive Issues: Insights from Group Interviews on Nursing in the Northern Ireland ‘Troubles.’” International Journal of Qualitative Methods 6(4), 1–19. A great example of using focus groups productively around emotional or sensitive topics. The authors suggest that focus groups should be considered most useful for illuminating locally sanctioned ways of talking about sensitive issues.

Merton, Robert K., Marjorie Fiske, and Patricia L. Kendall. 1956. The Focused Interview: A Manual of Problems and Procedures . New York: Free Press. This is one of the first classic texts on conducting interviews, including an entire chapter devoted to the “group interview” (chapter 6).

Morgan, David L. 1986. “Focus Groups.” Annual Review of Sociology 22:129–152. An excellent sociological review of the use of focus groups, comparing and contrasting to both surveys and interviews, with some suggestions for improving their use and developing greater rigor when utilizing them.

de Oliveira, Dorca Lucia. 2011. “The Use of Focus Groups to Investigate Sensitive Topics: An Example Taken from Research on Adolescent Girls’ Perceptions about Sexual Risks.” Cien Saude Colet 16(7):3093–3102. Another example of discussing sensitive topics in focus groups. Here, the author explores using focus groups with teenage girls to discuss AIDS, risk, and sexuality as a matter of public health interest.

Peek, Lori, and Alice Fothergill. 2009. “Using Focus Groups: Lessons from Studying Daycare Centers, 9/11, and Hurricane Katrina.” Qualitative Research 9(1):31–59. An examination of the efficacy and value of focus groups by comparing three separate projects: a study of teachers, parents, and children at two urban daycare centers; a study of the responses of second-generation Muslim Americans to the events of September 11; and a collaborative project on the experiences of children and youth following Hurricane Katrina. Throughout, the authors stress the strength of focus groups with marginalized, stigmatized, or vulnerable individuals.

Wilson, Valerie. 1997. “Focus Groups: A Useful Qualitative Method for Educational Research?” British Educational Research Journal 23(2):209–224. A basic description of how focus groups work using an example from a study intended to inform initiatives in health education and promotion in Scotland.

• Note that I have included a few examples of conducting focus groups with sensitive issues in the “ Further Readings ” section and have included an “ Advanced: Focus Groups on Sensitive Topics ” section on this area. ↵

A focus group interview is an interview with a small group of people on a specific topic.  “The power of focus groups resides in their being focused” (Patton 2002:388).  These are sometimes framed as “discussions” rather than interviews, with a discussion “moderator.”  Alternatively, the focus group is “a form of data collection whereby the researcher convenes a small group of people having similar attributes, experiences, or ‘focus’ and leads the group in a nondirective manner.  The objective is to surface the perspectives of the people in the group with as minimal influence by the researcher as possible” (Yin 2016:336).  See also diversity focus group and convergence focus group.

A form of focus group construction in which people with diverse perspectives and experiences are chosen for inclusion.  This helps the researcher identify commonalities across this diversity and/or note interactions across differences.  Contrast with a convergence focus group

A form of focus group construction in which people with similar perspectives and experiences are included.  These are particularly helpful for identifying shared patterns and group consensus.  Contrast with a diversity focus group .

Introduction to Qualitative Research Methods Copyright © 2023 by Allison Hurst is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

Research Design Review

A discussion of qualitative & quantitative research design, strengths of the focus group method: an overview.

The following is a modified excerpt from Applied Qualitative Research Design: A Total Quality Framework Approach (Roller & Lavrakas, 2015, pp. 111-112).

• A dynamic group discussion will often stimulate spontaneous ideas and personal disclosures that might otherwise go unstated in an IDI.
• A relaxed, interactive, as well as a supportive (e.g., homogeneous) group environment can be conducive to discussing sensitive topics (e.g., a discussion of the immigration process among recent Chinese immigrants to the United States).
• As participants exchange opinions, they consider their own views in relation to others’—which may encourage participants to refine their thoughts. In this way the group interaction gives the researcher insight into how people think about the topic(s) being studied and on what basis opinions may change. For example, in a focus group with college students who are considering various study-abroad programs, some participants might change their criteria for selecting one program over another after hearing other participants’ considerations. This discussion would help the researcher identify the important aspects of study-abroad programs that may impact students’ decision making.

Participant interaction, or the social aspect of focus group discussions, can be a particularly important advantage when conducting research with vulnerable and underserved population segments . For instance, women’s studies researchers such as Wilkinson (1999) believe that focus groups offer feminist psychologists an important research approach over other psychological research methods because they (a) come “closer to everyday social processes” (p. 227) and are less “artificial” than other methods; (b) are highly interactive, which “produces insights that would not be available outside the group context” (p. 229); and (c) reduce the moderator’s “exploitation” of the research by shifting control of the discussion to the participants. Other researchers have found the social nature of focus group discussions to be conducive to investigating societal constraints and health needs among Emirati women (Bailey, 2012; Winslow, Honein, & Elzubeir, 2002).

There are two other important strengths of the group discussion method: (1) it allows for the presence of observers , especially in the face-to-face (in-person and sometimes video) mode; and (2) it increases the likelihood that a wide range of attitudes, knowledge, and experiences will be captured in one group session. Whereas most qualitative research methods can conceivably accommodate observers, observers tend to take on a particularly engaged and active role in group interviewing. Face-to-face focus groups are traditionally conducted at a facility equipped with a one-way mirror (and online video group platforms also offer a client backroom), behind which members of the research team can view and hear the discussions. (Note: Group participants are informed of the presence of observers prior to the discussion.) Viewers often include people affiliated with the research sponsor who have a vested interest in learning firsthand about the attitudes and behavior of members of the target population. In addition to gaining clarity on participants’ wants and needs, observers can be helpful in redirecting the discussion on the spot, if necessary, when participants make unanticipated comments that introduce a new way of thinking about the research topic. In these situations, it is important to be able to change course in the research or otherwise pursue new lines of questioning as unanticipated insights emerge from the discussions.

The range of opinions and behavior that can be represented in any one focus group is another important strength of the method because such a range is a factor in finding the “surprising insights” mentioned above. Even the most homogeneous group of participants will relate different experiences and thoughts, thereby giving the researcher an awareness and appreciation of the extent of divergent views on a particular issue. Unlike the IDI method that requires many separate interviews to uncover the spectrum of perspectives related to the subject matter, group discussions offer a time- and often cost-efficient method for revealing differing viewpoints.

Bailey, D. C. (2012). Women and Wasta: The use of focus groups for understanding social capital and Middle Eastern women. Retrieved from The Qualitative Report website: http://www.nova.edu/ssss/QR/QR17/bailey.pdf

Wilkinson, S. (1999). Focus groups: A feminist method. Psychology of Women Quarterly , 23 (2), 221–244.

Winslow, W. W., Honein, G., & Elzubeir, M. A. (2002). Seeking Emirati women’s voices: The use of focus groups with an Arab population. Qualitative Health Research , 12 (4), 566–575. https://doi.org/10.1177/104973202129119991

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What are focus groups?

Last updated

19 January 2023

Reviewed by

Jean Kaluza

Focus groups are a valuable tool for businesses and organizations to gather feedback and insights from a targeted group. The goal of a focus group is to gain a deeper understanding of the participants' attitudes, beliefs, and opinions on your chosen topic.

Using focus groups, businesses and organizations can gain valuable insights to inform decision-making and strategy development.

Analyze focus group sessions

Dovetail streamlines focus group research to help you understand the responses and find patterns faster

• What is a focus group?

A focus group is a small, carefully selected group that participates in a moderated discussion or session on a specific topic or issue. The group typically has five to 10 people. Researchers choose participants based on specific criteria, such as demographics, interests, or experiences. 

The goal of a focus group is to gather insights and feedback on a particular topic or issue. A trained facilitator typically moderates and guides the discussion, encouraging the participants to share their thoughts and opinions.

The information and insights from a focus group can be valuable for businesses and organizations in making decisions and developing strategies.

• Benefits of focus groups

Gathering valuable insights and feedback from a targeted group on a specific topic or issue

Gaining a deeper understanding of the attitudes, beliefs, and opinions of the participants

Providing a platform for participants to share their thoughts and ideas in a group setting

Identifying common themes and trends among participants

Allowing the exploration of new ideas and potential solutions to problems

Providing a cost-effective way to gather information and make decisions

Facilitating open and honest communication among participants

Offering an opportunity for businesses to engage with their customers and stakeholders

Are focus groups worth it?

Whether or not focus groups are worth it depends on the business’s specific goals and objectives. We've seen the benefits that focus groups can provide, but a company will only realize those if they carefully select and conduct a focus group .

A focus group is not necessarily representative of the broader population. A focus group's opinions and insights may not apply to the general public, customers, or stakeholders. That’s why a researcher must carefully pick a representative sample of the target audience. 

Additionally, focus groups tend to lean toward the more outspoken participant’s opinions. Participants who are more soft-spoken or conflict-averse may have their points of view lost in translation. 

The actual customer sentiment could be lost if the business makes assumptions about the topic or draws conclusions from only part of the group's opinions. This may lead to incorrect, costly decisions. 

In essence, focus groups are a very powerful tool, but businesses must use them correctly to reap the benefits.

• The main pillars of a focus group

The main pillars of a focus group are the participants, the moderator, and the discussion guide.

Participants  

These are the people the business selects to participate in the focus group. The business bases its selection on specific criteria, such as demographics, interests, or experiences of the product or services. 

The participants typically represent a diverse range of perspectives related to the topic or issue of discussion.

This person facilitates the discussion. The moderator guides the conversation, encourages participation, and keeps the discussion on track. 

The moderator is usually trained and experienced in conducting focus groups. Having skills in managing group dynamics and facilitating open and honest communication is vital.

Discussion guide

The moderator typically uses this tool to structure the focus group discussion. The discussion guide typically includes questions, topics, instructions, or prompts for the moderator to use during the conversation. The researcher should carefully design the discussion guide to ensure the focus group discussion stays on track and is productive and effective.

• The types of focus groups

Different needs require unique approaches. As such, several focus group types have evolved over the years, providing more specialized results to match the desired information. These include:

Traditional focus groups 

These are the most common type of focus group, where a small group of individuals comes together to participate in a moderated discussion on a specific topic or issue. The group typically has 8–10 people.

Online focus groups

These are similar to traditional focus groups, but the discussion takes place online rather than in person. Online focus groups can use various platforms, such as video conferencing software or online discussion forums.

Mini groups 

These are small focus groups of only 4–6 people. Mini groups are ideal for sensitive or personal topics. Businesses can also use mini groups when they need a more in-depth understanding of the participants’ experiences and opinions.

Dual-moderator focus groups

These are focus groups where two moderators facilitate the discussion. This can be useful when the topic or issue is complex or when it is vital to gain perspectives from multiple angles.

Expert focus groups

These are focus groups where the participants are experts or specialists in a particular field. This type of focus group can be useful when a business needs insights and feedback from people with specialized knowledge or expertise.

• How to conduct a focus group

Conducting a focus group involves several steps. The specifics will depend on the type of focus group. In general, all focus groups have the following five steps:

1. Identifying the goals and objectives 

Before conducting a focus group, it is important to clearly define the goals and objectives of the discussion. This will ensure the focus group is productive and enable the moderator to design an effective discussion guide.

2. Selecting the participants 

This typically involves defining the criteria for participation and recruiting people who meet those criteria. Selecting a representative group of participants is crucial to ensure the discussion represents a range of perspectives and experiences.

3. Developing the discussion guide 

The discussion guide should include questions or topics, instructions, and prompts for the moderator to use during the discussion. Careful guide design ensures the conversation is productive and extracts all participants' true feelings and thoughts.

4. Conducting the focus group 

During the discussion, the moderator should facilitate the conversation, encouraging participation and keeping the dialog on track. It’s important to create an open and comfortable environment where participants feel free to share their thoughts and opinions.

5. Analyzing and reporting the results

After the focus group, the researcher should analyze and report the results to the business. This typically involves transcribing the discussion and identifying common themes and trends among the participants. 

• Example focus group questions

The specific questions you ask will depend on what you want to know, and it's essential to cover all bases of the topic. Here is an example discussion outline:

What are your initial opinions on the subject?

How does the topic impact you personally?

Can you share an experience or example that relates to the topic?

How do you feel about the current state of the subject?

What are the most critical factors for you regarding the subject?

What are your concerns or challenges related to the topic?

What are your ideas or suggestions for improving the topic?

How should the topic evolve in the future?

Do you have any final thoughts or comments?

What do focus groups pay?

The amount that focus groups pay varies depending on several factors, such as the length of the focus group, the location, and the complexity of the discussion topic. In general, focus group participants can expect payment in line with their time and effort.

Are focus groups qualitative or quantitative?

Focus groups are a qualitative research method, so the information and insights don’t use numerical data. Instead, the focus group discussion explores the participants’ attitudes, beliefs, and opinions on a specific topic or issue. 

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What Is a Focus Group?

Saul Mcleod, PhD

Editor-in-Chief for Simply Psychology

BSc (Hons) Psychology, MRes, PhD, University of Manchester

Saul Mcleod, PhD., is a qualified psychology teacher with over 18 years of experience in further and higher education. He has been published in peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Clinical Psychology.

Learn about our Editorial Process

Olivia Guy-Evans, MSc

Associate Editor for Simply Psychology

BSc (Hons) Psychology, MSc Psychology of Education

Olivia Guy-Evans is a writer and associate editor for Simply Psychology. She has previously worked in healthcare and educational sectors.

A focus group is a qualitative research method that involves facilitating a small group discussion with participants who share common characteristics or experiences that are relevant to the research topic. The goal is to gain insights through group conversation and observation of dynamics.

In a focus group:

• A moderator asks questions and leads a group of typically 6 to 12 pre-screened participants through a discussion focused on a particular topic.
• Group members are encouraged to talk with one another, exchange anecdotes, comment on each others’ experiences and points of view, and build on each others’ responses.
• The goal is to create a candid, natural conversation that provides insights into the participants’ perceptions, attitudes, beliefs, and opinions on the topic.
• Focus groups capitalize on group dynamics to elicit multiple perspectives in a social environment as participants are influenced by and influence others through open discussion.
• The interactive responses allow researchers to quickly gather more contextual, nuanced qualitative data compared to surveys or one-on-one interviews.

Focus groups allow researchers to gather perspectives from multiple people at once in an interactive group setting. This group dynamic surfaces richer responses as participants build on each other’s comments, discuss issues in-depth, and voice agreements or disagreements.

It is important that participants feel comfortable expressing diverse viewpoints rather than being pressured into a consensus.

Focus groups emerged as an alternative to questionnaires in the 1930s over concerns that surveys fostered passive responses or failed to capture people’s authentic perspectives.

During World War II, focus groups were used to evaluate military morale-boosting radio programs. By the 1950s focus groups became widely adopted in marketing research to test consumer preferences.

A key benefit K. Merton highlighted in 1956 was grouping participants with shared knowledge of a topic. This common grounding enables people to provide context to their experiences and allows contrasts between viewpoints to emerge across the group.

As a result, focus groups can elicit a wider range of perspectives than one-on-one interviews.

Step 1 : Clarify the Focus Group’s Purpose and Orientation

Clarify the purpose and orientation of the focus group (Tracy, 2013). Carefully consider whether a focus group or individual interviews will provide the type of qualitative data needed to address your research questions.

Determine if the interactive, fast-paced group discussion format is aligned with gathering perspectives vs. in-depth attitudes on a topic.

Consider incorporating special techniques like extended focus groups with pre-surveys, touchstones using creative imagery/metaphors to focus the topic, or bracketing through ongoing conceptual inspection.

For example

A touchstone in a focus group refers to using a shared experience, activity, metaphor, or other creative technique to provide a common reference point and orientation for grounding the discussion.

The purpose of Mulvale et al. (2021) was to understand the hospital experiences of youth after suicide attempts.

The researchers created a touchstone to focus the discussion specifically around the hospital visit. This provided a shared orientation for the vulnerable participants to open up about their emotional journeys.

In the example from Mulvale et al. (2021), the researchers designated the hospital visit following suicide attempts as the touchstone. This means:

• The visit served as a defining shared experience all youth participants could draw upon to guide the focus group discussion, since they unfortunately had this in common.
• Framing questions around recounting and making meaning out of the hospitalization focused the conversation to elicit rich details about interactions, emotions, challenges, supports needed, and more in relation to this watershed event.
• The hospital visit as a touchstone likely resonated profoundly across youth given the intensity and vulnerability surrounding their suicide attempts. This deepened their willingness to open up and established group rapport.

So in this case, the touchstone concentrated the dialogue around a common catalyst experience enabling youth to build understanding, voice difficulties, and potentially find healing through sharing their journey with empathetic peers who had endured the same trauma.

Step 2 : Select a Homogeneous Grouping Characteristic

Select a homogeneous grouping characteristic (Krueger & Casey, 2009) to recruit participants with a commonality, like shared roles, experiences, or demographics, to enable meaningful discussion.

A sample size of between 6 to 10 participants allows for adequate mingling (MacIntosh 1993).

More members may diminish the ability to capture all viewpoints. Fewer risks limited diversity of thought.

Balance recruitment across income, gender, age, and cultural factors to increase heterogeneity in perspectives. Consider screening criteria to qualify relevant participants.

Choosing focus group participants requires balancing homogeneity and diversity – too much variation across gender, class, profession, etc., can inhibit sharing, while over-similarity limits perspectives. Groups should feel mutual comfort and relevance of experience to enable open contributions while still representing a mix of viewpoints on the topic (Morgan 1988).

Mulvale et al. (2021) determined grouping by gender rather than age or ethnicity was more impactful for suicide attempt experiences.

They fostered difficult discussions by bringing together male and female youth separately based on the sensitive nature of topics like societal expectations around distress.

Step 3 : Designate a Moderator

Designate a skilled, neutral moderator (Crowe, 2003; Morgan, 1997) to steer productive dialogue given their expertise in guiding group interactions. Consider cultural insider moderators positioned to foster participant sharing by understanding community norms.

Define moderator responsibilities like directing discussion flow, monitoring air time across members, and capturing observational notes on behaviors/dynamics.

Choose whether the moderator also analyzes data or only facilitates the group.

Mulvale et al. (2021) designated a moderator experienced working with marginalized youth to encourage sharing by establishing an empathetic, non-judgmental environment through trust-building and active listening guidance.

Step 4 : Develop a Focus Group Guide

Develop an extensive focus group guide (Krueger & Casey, 2009). Include an introduction to set a relaxed tone, explain the study rationale, review confidentiality protection procedures, and facilitate a participant introduction activity.

Also include guidelines reiterating respect, listening, and sharing principles both verbally and in writing.

Group confidentiality agreement

The group context introduces distinct ethical demands around informed consent, participant expectations, confidentiality, and data treatment. Establishing guidelines at the outset helps address relevant issues.

Create a group confidentiality agreement (Berg, 2004) specifying that all comments made during the session must remain private, anonymous in data analysis, and not discussed outside the group without permission.

Have it signed, demonstrating a communal commitment to sustaining a safe, secure environment for honest sharing.

Berg (2004) recommends a formal signed agreement prohibiting participants from publicly talking about anything said in the focus group without permission. This reassures members their personal disclosures are safeguarded.

Develop questions starting general then funneling down to 10-12 key questions on critical topics. Integrate think/pair/share activities between question sets to encourage inclusion. Close with a conclusion to summarize key ideas voiced without endorsing consensus.

Krueger and Casey (2009) recommend structuring focus group questions in five stages:

Opening Questions:

• Start with easy, non-threatening questions to make participants comfortable, often related to their background and experience with the topic.
• Get everyone talking and open up initial dialogue.
• Example: “Let’s go around and have each person share how long you’ve lived in this city.”

Introductory Questions:

• Transition to the key focus group objectives and main topics of interest.
• Remain quite general to provide baseline understanding before drilling down.
• Example: “Thinking broadly, how would you describe the arts and cultural offerings in your community?”

Transition Questions:

• Serve as a logical link between introductory and key questions.
• Funnel participants toward critical topics guided by research aims.
• Example: “Specifically related to concerts and theatre performances, what venues in town have you attended events at over the past year?”

Key Questions:

• Drive at the heart of study goals, and issues under investigation.
• Ask 5-10 questions that foster organic, interactive discussion between participants.
• Example: “What enhances or detracts from the concert-going experience at these various venues?”

Ending Questions:

• Provide an opportunity for final thoughts or anything missed.
• Assess the degree of consensus on key topics.
• Example: “If you could improve just one thing about the concert and theatre options here, what would you prioritize?”

It is vital to extensively pilot test draft questions to hone the wording, flow, timing, tone and tackle any gaps to adequately cover research objectives through dynamic group discussion.

Step 5 : Prepare the focus group room

Prepare the focus group room (Krueger & Casey, 2009) attending to details like circular seating for eye contact, centralized recording equipment with backup power, name cards, and refreshments to create a welcoming, affirming environment critical for participants to feel valued, comfortable engaging in genuine dialogue as a collective.

Arrange seating comfortably in a circle to facilitate discussion flow and eye contact among members. Decide if space for breakout conversations or activities like role-playing is needed.

Refreshments

• Coordinate snacks or light refreshments to be available when focus group members arrive, especially for longer sessions. This contributes to a welcoming atmosphere.
• Even if no snacks are provided, consider making bottled water available throughout the session.
• Set out colorful pens and blank name tags for focus group members to write their preferred name or pseudonym when they arrive.
• Attaching name tags to clothing facilitates interaction and expedites learning names.
• If short on preparation time, prepare printed name tags in advance based on RSVPs, but blank name tags enable anonymity if preferred.

Krueger & Casey (2009) suggest welcoming focus group members with comfortable, inclusive seating arrangements in a circle to enable eye contact. Providing snacks and music sets a relaxed tone.

Step 6 : Conduct the focus group

Conduct the focus group utilizing moderation skills like conveying empathy, observing verbal and non-verbal cues, gently redirecting and probing overlooked members, and affirming the usefulness of knowledge sharing.

Use facilitation principles (Krueger & Casey, 2009; Tracy 2013) like ensuring psychological safety, mutual respect, equitable airtime, and eliciting an array of perspectives to expand group knowledge. Gain member buy-in through collaborative review.

Record discussions through detailed note-taking, audio/video recording, and seating charts tracking engaged participation.

The role of moderator

The moderator is critical in facilitating open, interactive discussion in the group. Their main responsibilities are:

• Providing clear explanations of the purpose and helping participants feel comfortable
• Promoting debate by asking open-ended questions
• Drawing out differences of opinion and a range of perspectives by challenging participants
• Probing for more details when needed or moving the conversation forward
• Keeping the discussion focused and on track
• Ensuring all participants get a chance to speak
• Remaining neutral and non-judgmental, without sharing personal opinions

Moderators need strong interpersonal abilities to build participant trust and comfort sharing. The degree of control and input from the moderator depends on the research goals and personal style.

With multiple moderators, roles, and responsibilities should be clear and consistent across groups. Careful preparation is key for effective moderation.

Mulvale et al. (2021) fostered psychological safety for youth to share intense emotions about suicide attempts without judgment. The moderator ensured equitable speaking opportunities within a compassionate climate.

Krueger & Casey (2009) advise moderators to handle displays of distress empathetically by offering a break and emotional support through active listening instead of ignoring reactions. This upholds ethical principles.

Advantages and disadvantages of focus groups

Focus groups efficiently provide interactive qualitative data that can yield useful insights into emerging themes. However, findings may be skewed by group behaviors and still require larger sample validation through added research methods. Careful planning is vital.

• Efficient way to gather a range of perspectives in participants’ own words in a short time
• Group dynamic encourages more complex responses as members build on others’ comments
• Can observe meaningful group interactions, consensus, or disagreements
• Flexibility for moderators to probe unanticipated insights during discussion
• Often feels more comfortable sharing as part of a group rather than one-on-one
• Helps participants recall and reflect by listening to others tell their stories

Disadvantages

• Small sample size makes findings difficult to generalize
• Groupthink: influential members may discourage dissenting views from being shared
• Social desirability bias: reluctance from participants to oppose perceived majority opinions
• Requires highly skilled moderators to foster inclusive participation and contain domineering members
• Confidentiality harder to ensure than with individual interviews
• Transcriptions may have overlapping talk that is difficult to capture accurately
• Group dynamics adds layers of complexity for analysis beyond just the content of responses

Goss, J. D., & Leinbach, T. R. (1996). Focus groups as alternative research practice: experience with transmigrants in Indonesia.  Area , 115-123.

Kitzinger, J. (1994). The methodology of focus groups: the importance of interaction between research participants .  Sociology of health & illness ,  16 (1), 103-121.

Kitzinger J. (1995). Introducing focus groups. British Medical Journal, 311 , 299-302.

Morgan D.L. (1988). Focus groups as qualitative research . London: Sage.

Mulvale, G., Green, J., Miatello, A., Cassidy, A. E., & Martens, T. (2021). Finding harmony within dissonance: engaging patients, family/caregivers and service providers in research to fundamentally restructure relationships through integrative dynamics .  Health Expectations ,  24 , 147-160.

Powell, R. A., Single, H. M., & Lloyd, K. R. (1996). Focus groups in mental health research: enhancing the validity of user and provider questionnaires .  International Journal of Social Psychiatry ,  42 (3), 193-206.

Puchta, C., & Potter, J. (2004). Focus group practice . Sage.

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What is a Focus Group in Qualitative Research?

What is a focus group in qualitative research  .

In the world of research, different methodologies and techniques are employed to gather data and gain insights into various phenomena. One popular method used in qualitative research is the focus group. Focus groups offer researchers a unique opportunity to delve deep into the thoughts, opinions, and experiences of a group of individuals, providing valuable qualitative data that can inform decision-making processes.  

So, what exactly is a focus group?  

A focus group is a qualitative research technique that involves bringing together a small group of individuals who share certain characteristics or experiences to discuss a specific topic of interest. Typically, a moderator guides the discussion, ensuring that all participants have the opportunity to express their views and opinions. The participants are encouraged to interact with one another, allowing for the emergence of shared perspectives and the exploration of different viewpoints.  

The composition of a focus group depends on the research objectives and the target population. Participants are often selected based on specific criteria to ensure they have relevant experiences or knowledge related to the research topic. For example, if a study aims to explore consumer perceptions of a new product, the focus group might consist of individuals who have used similar products in the past or who fit the target demographic for the new product.  

Focus groups are conducted in a comfortable and non-threatening environment, such as a meeting room or a research facility. The sessions are typically audio or video recorded, with the participants’ consent, to capture the rich data that emerges during the discussion. The recordings are later transcribed and analysed to identify recurring themes, patterns, and insights.  

Now, let’s explore some key benefits of using focus groups in qualitative research:  

• In-depth exploration: Focus groups provide an opportunity to delve deep into participants’ thoughts, feelings, and experiences regarding a particular topic. Through interactive discussions, participants can build on each other’s responses, leading to a more comprehensive understanding of the subject matter.  
• Group dynamics: The group setting of a focus group allows for the exploration of social interactions and group dynamics. Participants can influence each other’s opinions and generate new ideas through the exchange of diverse perspectives. This dynamic process can uncover insights that may not emerge in one-on-one interviews.  
• Rich qualitative data: Focus group discussions generate qualitative data that is rich in detail and nuance. Researchers can capture participants’ emotions, attitudes, and beliefs, providing a deeper understanding of the topic under investigation. This qualitative data can be particularly useful when exploring complex social phenomena or studying human behaviour.  
• Cost and time efficiency: Compared to individual interviews, focus groups can be more time and cost-effective. By gathering a group of participants at once, researchers can obtain multiple perspectives in a single session. This efficiency can be especially beneficial when working with limited resources or tight research timelines.  
• Participant engagement: Focus groups offer participants an active role in the research process. The interactive nature of the discussions can be engaging and empowering, as participants feel heard and valued. This engagement often leads to more open and honest responses, enhancing the validity of the data collected.  

It is important to note that while focus groups have numerous advantages, they also have limitations. The group setting may lead to social desirability bias, where participants may conform to the dominant opinions within the group. Additionally, the findings from focus groups cannot be easily generalised to larger populations due to the small sample size.  

In conclusion, focus groups are a valuable qualitative research method that allows researchers to explore a topic in-depth by harnessing the power of group dynamics and interactive discussions. By bringing together a diverse group of participants, researchers can gain rich insights into their thoughts, opinions, and experiences. The information gathered through focus groups can inform decision-making processes, guide the development of products or services, and contribute to a deeper understanding of human behaviour and attitudes.  

At My View Research, we understand the importance of customised solutions that meet your specific needs. That’s why we invite you to reach out to us, and together, we’ll design a focus group program that aligns perfectly with your objectives.  

Whether you’re a business looking to gather valuable insights on your products or services, a nonprofit organisation aiming to understand public opinion on important issues, or an academic institution conducting research, our experienced team is here to assist you every step of the way.  

By collaborating with My View Research, you’ll benefit from our expertise in designing and conducting focus groups that yield rich and meaningful data. Our proven methodologies and skilled moderators ensure a comprehensive and insightful research experience.  

To get started on your customised focus group program, simply contact us using one of the following methods:  

 ✉️ Send an email to [email protected] with a brief overview of your project, and we’ll promptly get back to you.   

💻 Visit our website at www.myviewresearch.com/focus-groups to learn more about our focus group services and submit an enquiry form.  

We believe in the power of collaboration and look forward to working with you to create a focus group program that delivers valuable insights. Let’s connect today and bring your research goals to life! 💡  

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The focus groups in social research: advantages and disadvantages

• Published: 03 September 2011
• Volume 46 , pages 1125–1136, ( 2012 )

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The focus group (FG) technique has been recently rediscovered by social scientists. It has become the subject of important methodological discussions and it is now considered a very innovative research method. However, such a widespread use of FG seems to have become a fashionable research technique. The impression is that FG is often adopted without any prior consideration of whether it really is the most suitable research technique for achieving the cognitive goals of the research. At the same time, it seems that the FG is often adopted only because it is considered an easy-to-organise and inexpensive technique. The goal of this paper is to evaluate the nature of the FG, analyse its advantages and disadvantages and identify the cognitive problems that it helps to face. In order to discuss these two points, I will focus on the two main characteristics that differentiate the FG from other techniques of information gathering in social research. Firstly, in FGs the informative source is a group. Secondly, the heuristic value of this technique lies in the kind of interaction that emerges during the debate. Several researchers have indicated these two aspects as the main characteristics of FG; but only few authors have translated these comments into serious epistemological and methodological knowledge, thus allowing the FG to give its best results.

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Setting the Scene for a New Era of Focus Group Research

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Focus group study: qualitative studies

How to use focus groups to evaluate your digital health product.

This page is part of a collection on guidance on evaluating digital health products .

Focus groups are facilitated group discussions. The facilitator is the person guiding the discussion. Carry out a focus group study if you want to understand people’s views and experiences.

What to use it for

Focus groups use group dynamics to get shared experiences of people with similar characteristics. This is different from an interview study, where the focus is on individuals.

Focus groups can be used to get feedback before, during, or after your product is developed (formative or summative evaluations).

Use focus groups when:

• you want to get a breadth of understanding of the thoughts and experiences of users
• you have open-ended questions about your product

Benefits include:

• group dynamics can promote discussion, idea sharing and debate
• they provide a breadth of shared experiences from people with similar characteristics, for example people experiencing similar health conditions or health professionals using your digital product
• they can be used at every stage of creating a digital product, from finding out more about the needs of your users to refining and testing new content and features of your product

Drawbacks include:

• staff needed – you will need a facilitator who encourages discussion and possibly also a separate note-taker
• it might be difficult to get the users you need together in one room at the same time

Focus group studies are not a time-saving alternative to interview studies .

How to carry out a focus group study

You can use interviews to collect qualitative data, but you can also collect some quantitative data. The same principles apply to focus groups as to interview studies. You will need to create a plan in advance of the focus group session. Think about what you want to find out. You can use your model of how your product works to help you put together questions to guide the discussion during the focus group .

Depending on what you want to find out, you might want to recruit people who are similar to each other (homogeneous sampling), or recruit more varied users to get a wider understanding of their experience of your digital product (heterogeneous sampling). For example, when developing a fitness tracker for people with physical disabilities, you might want to recruit people with disabilities who have used a tracker before in order to find out their needs and preferences. Then, once the tracker is developed, you might want to recruit people with disabilities who are physically inactive to find out their experiences of the product.

There is no set size of the group; 6 to 8 people often works well. Smaller groups can work too. You will need to decide how many focus groups to conduct. One approach is to keep recruiting participants until you are not getting any new insights from focus groups (saturation of answers).

Focus groups need facilitators. They should:

• encourage participants to discuss their views openly
• use prompts and questions to make sure the discussion points you are interested in are covered

If you have not facilitated a focus group before, it is a good idea to get someone to run it for you until you become familiar with the role.

You will need to consider:

• venue – neutral places are best because participants will be more open in what they say
• duration – 1–2 hours is usual
• refreshments
• whether you will pay transport costs or give participants incentives for participating

It is important to spend some time at the beginning of the focus group building trust and rapport. It is also a good practice to have some ground rules, such as:

• respect others’ opinions
• listen without interrupting
• don’t talk over each other
• maintain confidentiality – what is said in the room stays in the room. This is especially important if you are conducting focus groups around a sensitive topic.

Example: What do people with physical disability want from a tracking app?

Olsen and others (2019), Content and Feature Preferences for a Physical Activity App for Adults With Physical Disabilities: Focus Group Study

The team wanted to develop an app for people with physical disabilities to track fitness.

To find out user preferences, they chose to run focus groups with active people with physical disability who had used fitness tracking at least once before (homogeneous sampling).

Choosing active people who had used fitness tracking meant that participants had a shared common experience. This would help to spark discussion and debate around the fitness tracking features users wanted and any unmet needs this group of users had.

They used an experienced facilitator and an observer who was also taking notes.

They conducted 4 groups with 15 participants. They stopped at this point because they had reached saturation. During the focus group session, the facilitator and the note-taker recorded all the fitness tracking features mentioned. At the end of each group session, they compared their notes and compiled the list of features. Each participant was asked to rate the priority of features as ‘must have’, ‘nice to have’ or ‘not needed’.

The focus group sessions were recorded and transcribed. The team used thematic analysis, but also focused their analysis to find out more about the features, functionality and appearance of the app that they wanted to develop.

The results included the compiled list of 34 recommended features and functions of the app. They also identified five overarching themes around intuitive and accessible design, personalisation of the app, gamification and social features. These were ranked according to their importance.

Note that these results on user preferences might apply to people with physical disability who are active, but they might be quite different for those who are inactive. It is important to think about which users of your digital product you want to focus on. This will dictate your sampling.

More information and resources

Avis and others (2015), Lessons Learned from Using Focus Groups to Refine Digital Interventions . Practical advice on how to run focus groups to refine your digital product.

Kitea and Phongsavan (2017), Insights for conducting real-time focus groups online using a web conferencing service . Practical advice on how to run online focus groups.

Examples of focus group studies in digital health

Garrido and others (2019), Young People’s Response to Six Smartphone Apps for Anxiety and Depression: Focus Group Study . The team ran focus groups with young people to find out about users’ needs to inform and recommend the development of the apps.

Alkhaldi and others (2017), Promoting Engagement With a Digital Health Intervention (HeLP-Diabetes) Using Email and Text Message Prompts: Mixed-Methods Study . Researchers wanted to find out how best to use prompts to promote engagement with an online intervention for Type 2 Diabetes.

Lally and others (2018), Feasibility of Synchronous Online Focus Groups of Rural Breast Cancer Survivors on Web-Based Distress Self-Management . The team ran online focus groups exploring the views of an online intervention for breast cancer survivors.

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Top 7 Focus Group Software for Comprehensive Research

It’s important to include qualitative research in long-term studies to really understand a community. Companies often use focus groups to gather deeper insights from their biggest supporters and customers. Focus group software is an easy way to get rich insights from discussions.

In this blog, we will explore top focus group software and help you choose the best one.

What is Focus Group Software?

Focus group software is a tool designed to facilitate and streamline the process of conducting focus group sessions. This software helps researchers, marketers, and other professionals gather qualitative data and insights from participants in a well-organized and controlled way.

Focus group analysis software has various important roles in making focus group sessions run smoothly and effectively. Here are the typical functions of focus group software:

• Participant Recruitment
• Session Management
• Moderation and Facilitation
• Audio and Video Recordings
• Transcription and Analysis
• Participant Feedback

What are the Benefits of Focus Group Software?

The benefits of focus group software include:

• Efficiency: It streamlines the entire focus group process, from participant recruitment to session management, saving researchers time and effort.
• Organization: Focus group software helps keep sessions organized by managing participant lists, scheduling sessions, and providing tools for moderation and analysis.
• Remote Participation: Many software platforms allow for remote participation, enabling researchers to conduct focus groups with participants worldwide and increasing accessibility and diversity.
• Data Collection: It facilitates data collection by providing features for recording audio and video and tools for transcription and analysis, making it easier to gather and analyze qualitative data.
• Cost-Effectiveness: By reducing the need for physical meeting spaces and travel expenses, focus group analysis software can be a cost-effective solution for conducting research.
• Participant Engagement: Some software platforms offer interactive features that enhance participant engagement during focus group sessions, leading to richer and more insightful discussions.

Top 7 Focus Group Software in 2024

Focus group software plays a vital role in facilitating interactive discussions, collecting qualitative feedback, and analyzing participant responses. As we step into 2024, let’s explore some of the top focus group software options available:

01. QuestionPro Community

QuestionPro Community is an online focus group software and research community platform designed to help businesses understand their customers’ needs and expectations. It provides a comprehensive suite of tools for conducting online qualitative research and gathering real-time insights from a community of participants.

How it works:

QuestionPro Community enables researchers to conduct video discussions and online focus groups, offering greater control over the research process. This is particularly advantageous when external factors such as pandemics, scheduling issues, or geographical diversity may impact the ability to conduct offline qualitative research.

QuestionPro Community has the ability to use smart filters to enroll the most relevant community members and invite them to join video discussions. Community administrators and researchers can plan, schedule, and efficiently conduct live discussions with panelists, replicating the models of offline traditional focus groups within the online community environment.

Moreover, QuestionPro Community offers auto-transcription of chat discussions, making analysis more accessible and efficient. Researchers can mark out chats to track essential insights and monitor participant behavior in real-time from anywhere, providing a comprehensive understanding of the research data.

Forsta is focus group analysis software that helps make qualitative research smooth and efficient. This flexible tool combines various features to create a lively online space for running focus groups. It offers a user-friendly platform that allows researchers to conduct virtual sessions easily. Participants can engage in discussions, share their perspectives, and interact with each other in real-time.

Forsta offers a versatile platform for facilitating insightful qualitative research. It provides a virtual backroom where researchers and moderators can collaborate, discuss session objectives, and strategize before and during the focus group sessions.

The tool also lets you make breakout rooms, which means you can have smaller focus group discussions within the larger focus group. This feature fosters more intimate conversations and enhances participant engagement.

03. QualSights

QualSights is advanced online focus group software that aims to change the way focus group research is conducted. It has many useful features for researchers and businesses that want to gather detailed information through qualitative research data. QualSights helps researchers engage with research participants from diverse locations.

QualSights allows researchers to observe focus group sessions remotely through high-quality video streaming. It supports both one-on-one interviews and focus group discussions, providing flexibility to researchers in designing their study methodologies.

Participants can chat with each other and the moderator in a virtual space that encourages open conversations and sharing ideas.

MAXQDA is a comprehensive focus group analysis software designed to facilitate qualitative research projects. It provides a versatile platform for researchers to manage and analyze various data types, including text, audio, and video files. With its robust set of tools, MAXQDA enables users to conduct in-depth analysis of focus group data, extract meaningful insights, and generate visualizations to aid interpretation.

MAXQDA is an all-in-one solution for focus group analysis, offering powerful features customized specifically to meet the needs of qualitative research researchers. It allows researchers to import focus group transcripts in various common text formats, such as DOC, DOCX, ODT, RTF, and TXT.

Additionally, researchers can import audio or video files of focus group interviews and analyze them directly within the software, with or without a prior focus group transcript.

FlexMR is a comprehensive insight hub offering a wide range of qualitative and quantitative research tools, including conducting small video focus groups. It provides a user-friendly platform for conducting video focus groups with interactive features to enhance participant engagement and collaboration.

FlexMR enables researchers to conduct online focus groups with a range of interactive features, including images, audio, video, smart boards, and quick polls. Participants can engage in both video and text chats, while stakeholders and decision-makers can observe sessions from a virtual observation room with a private chat facility.

Hosts can actively facilitate engagement by liaising between moderators and observing stakeholders.

Aha! is an online qualitative research platform with a focus group and In-depth Interviews product. This online focus group platform has an integrated Zoom online platform, making it easy to use video, voice, sharing content, and chat features. This unique platform helps conduct live webcam and mobile video chats for research.

Aha! offers both scheduled and spontaneous focus group sessions through live webcam or mobile video chats. These meetings are recorded and can be transcribed automatically using machine learning or human transcription.

The platform also has useful features like a personalized client backroom, a scheduling system with alerts, and tech checks for smooth running.

Qualzy is a great focus group software that changes how researchers do qualitative research. It is designed to help researchers conduct in-depth market research on participant behaviors and experiences. This focus group analysis software offers a comprehensive suite of tools for focus group studies.

Qualzy makes market research easier from start to finish, covering everything from planning to sharing findings. With it, researchers can smoothly run video focus groups, connecting with participants even if they’re far away.

It also offers helpful tools for transcribing, translating, and editing, making it easier to turn focus group data into useful information. And because it works in multiple languages, researchers can connect with people from different backgrounds and get detailed, culturally relevant focus group data.

The Benefits of QuestionPro Community in Focus Group Solutions

QuestionPro Community is a focus group analysis software. It offers a comprehensive and user-friendly solution for conducting focus groups, empowering researchers to gather valuable insights efficiently and effectively.

Here are several benefits of using QuestionPro Community in focus group solutions:

Seamless Online Experience

With QuestionPro Community, researchers can seamlessly transition their focus group activities to an online environment. This eliminates the challenges with offline research, like scheduling issues and distance limits, so it’s easier to engage participants from different places.

Instant Feedback

The platform provides real-time analytics during focus group sessions, allowing you to make quick decisions and gain timely insights.

Cost-Effectiveness

Using QuestionPro Community for online focus groups can save a lot of money compared to offline traditional focus group methods. You don’t have to pay for renting a venue, travel, or accommodations. This means businesses can spend their money and allocate resources more efficiently.

Targeted Recruitment

The software offers smart filters and participant selection tools, allowing researchers to recruit specific demographics or customer segments for their focus groups. This targeted approach ensures that discussions are relevant and meaningful, leading to deeper insights into customer needs and preferences.

Enhanced Engagement and Interaction

QuestionPro Community enables rich multimedia interactions, including live video discussions and chat features, fostering greater participant engagement. This interactive environment encourages open dialogue and collaboration, producing richer qualitative data.

Efficient Analysis Tools

The platform includes features such as auto-transcription and chat analysis, streamlining the process of analyzing focus group data. Researchers can easily identify patterns, key themes, and sentiments within the discussions, accelerating the generation of actionable insights.

Behavior Monitoring

QuestionPro Community allows researchers to monitor participant behavior in real time, providing valuable insights into engagement levels and response dynamics. This focus group analysis software enables researchers to adapt their approach during focus group sessions and ensure optimal outcomes.

Online focus groups are definitely the future of research. They’re easy to handle, packed with power, and offer great returns on investment. Transition your focus groups online now to unlock the full potential of qualitative research.

Running an online focus group becomes simple with robust online focus group software like QuestionPro Communities. This tool makes it easy to manage various studies, both frequent ones and those that last over time. Plus, it grants you access to quantitative and qualitative data, aiding your brand decisions.

QuestionPro Communities offers different modules for effectively managing online research. It includes features like IdeaBoard, a discussion platform for generating ideas, panel management, and handling rewards and incentives.

Start building your active online research community today! Cultivate meaningful relationships to stay ahead in the competitive business landscape and make smarter decisions.

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