Focus Groups

Group interviews are administered to groups of people (usually 6–12 members) selected particularly for the purpose of the ongoing research. The same interviews are administered to different people and therefore different attitudes and responses to a specific topic are obtained. During the group brainstorming, the participants think together, inspire and challenge each other, and react to the emerging issues and points (Dörnyei, 2007, p. 144). Later on, similarities and differences between the obtained responses are analysed.

The process of the focus group research includes:

• the selection of the topic – the topic has to be important to participants, and they are supposed to have some knowledge about it. However, some topics may seem safe to the interviewer, but are very sensitive to participants. According to Farquhar and Das (1999), all research topics have the potential to be sensitive because the sensitivity of a topic is not fixed but socially constructed;
• the selection of participants – the participants’ characteristics should be in line with the interview objectives and the topic discussed. Focus group participants are not selected by means of systematic random sampling. Given that the success of a group depends on the dynamics between group members, the group composition should be carefully considered by the researcher. The interaction between participants is a key feature of the focus group method, and there has to be sufficient diversity to encourage discussion. However, too heterogeneous groups may result in a conflict. So, researchers have to be familiar with the differences, aware of the potential problems, and have the strategies to deal with them, and even then, the researcher will not be able to anticipate or control the direction of the group discussion (Bloor et al. 2001, p. 20);
• organisation – all the relevant participants for a specific topic should be organised at the same time, and at the same venue;
• implementation – the group moderator should be experienced and competent for such a type of interview. The objective of the focus group research is not to elicit the group’s answers to pre-determined questions, but to stimulate discussion, and through subsequent analysis, understand the meanings and norms that underlie the group answers. Hence, instead of being asked to answer a question, the group may be required to perform a specific task, such as a ranking exercise, or description of a photograph (Bloor et al., 2001, p. 43). For the successful implementation of the focus group research, the role of the researcher is very important. Control is necessary, but the researcher should facilitate the group discussion, not control it, as the group interaction may be distorted by too much external control. At the same time, the facilitator must avoid the domination of the group by individual members, and also seek to encourage contributions from the more timorous ones (Bloor et al., 2001, p. 49). Silences may be quite embarrassing for facilitators, but there are certain things they can do to break them, such as commenting on non-verbal clues (Bloor et al., 2001, p. 52).
• recording – most often, audio-video recordings are made;
• analysis – a quality analysis of the collected material, during which the moderator’s presence is mandatory. According to Bloor et al. (2001, p. 59), the transcription of the recording of the focus group discussion is mandatory for academic research, as simple listening to the recording or the memory of the moderator may lead to the loss of much of the richness of the data, and will risk a selective and superficial analysis. On the other hand, the data that focus group discussions produce are chaotic because people often talk at once, sentences remain unfinished, people misinterpret other’s comments, their arguments develop as they discuss the topic, etc. Therefore, all the recorded speech should be transcribed, which means all the speakers, if more than one person is talking, not just the dominant voice, the unfinished or interrupted speech, very brief extracts of speech, even laughter, and body language, etc. Moreover, the speaker should be identified (Bloor et al., 2001, p. 72). In order to make this possible, Bloor et al. (2002) suggest that, as the first group exercise, people be asked to say their name, and tell a few sentences about themselves, which can serve as a reference point or a basis for the identification during the transcription. Moreover, the quantity of data is overwhelming, whereas the analysis must be systematic and rigorous, reflecting the views of all cases, not only those that fit the researcher’s own agenda (Bloor et al., 2001, p. 62);
• reporting – the research findings are properly transformed into reports.

The analysis of the data collected by means of interviews comprises the following elements:

• generating codes;
• designing analytic concepts;
• identifying patterns within the concepts;
• producing an explanation;
• moving forwards-backwards – constantly moving from the beginning to the end of the text and vice versa.

By coding, data are selected, connected, and theories are selected. From the process of coding, classes of phenomena and a clearly defined concept are obtained. Open coding is the initial procedure, which brings the elementary order into a huge amount of information. Focused coding is the process of removing less productive and less important codes, and focusing on a smaller number of key selected codes. A code is good if it contains a clear label, defined topic, description which explains when exactly something related to the topic appeared, as well as positive and negative examples in order to avoid confusion.

When documenting behaviour, focus groups are less suitable than individual interviews because there is a tendency for atypical behaviour to be unreported or under-reported in group settings, especially when groups are to reach a consensus on a given topic (Bloor et al., 2001, p. 8). The advantages of group interviews involve social orientation, flexibility, validity, clarity, efficiency, practicality, whereas the disadvantages include a lack of control, difficult data analyses, heterogeneity of groups, complex organization.