Focus Groups and Interviews

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Focus Groups and Interviews
William Caspar Graustein Memorial Fund Discovery
Initiative Data Collection Methods Training
Workshop
OMG Center for Collaborative Learning July 14,
2005
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• FOCUS GROUPS

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What is a focus group

• A group interview guided by a moderator
• A way of listening to people and learning from
  them
• A qualitative research method that is open-ended
• A discussion around a predetermined set of topics

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When to use a focus group

• To assess needs and gaps
• To guide program development
• To evaluate program/service visibility
• To evaluate program/service effectiveness,
  strengths and weaknesses

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Benefits of a Focus Group

• Very efficient way of collecting rich information
  from a group of people in a short time
• A good tool for collecting information about
  peoples attitudes and perceptions
• Group dynamics focus on the most important issues

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Drawbacks of a focus group

• Must be limited to a few questions about a small
  number of related topics
• Group dynamics can make participants reluctant to
  share their views
• Data can be difficult and time consuming to
  analyze

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Components of focus group design and
facilitation

• Planning
• Identifying and recruiting participants
• Selecting a moderator
• Developing focus group questions
• Analyzing and reporting results

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Planning

• Number of groups and timeline
• Personnel and budget
• Group composition and size (6-10)
• Compatibility gender, race, age, location or
  residence, education level, occupation, income,
  marital status
• Segmentation
• Location (meeting room, home)
• Parking, finding the facility, atmosphere
• Distractions, interruptions

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Planning

• 5. Other location-related details
• Room set up
• Food
• Childcare
• Taping/note taking
• Timing
• Incentives
• Dealing with privacy issues

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Identifying and recruiting participants

• Key informants and organizations
• Referrals
• Existing groups
• Screening participants
• Targeted participants
• Experts, focus groupies

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Selecting a moderator

• The moderator should be
• Respectful of and interested in participants a
  listener
• A moderator, not a participant
• Able to guide the discussion
• Disciplined in the face of opposing views

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Selecting a moderator

• The moderator should be
• Curious
• Neutral
• Focused
• Prepared

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Responsibilities of the moderator

• Redirecting, rephrasing and probing
• Generating follow-up clarification questions
• Discourage over dominance of any one participant
• Summarize impressions of participants who ramble
• Reinforcing participation of shy participants

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Responsibilities of the co-moderator

• Supporting the moderator
• Taking notes
• Summarizing key points at the end of the
  discussion
• Helping to write up the report

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Developing Focus Group Questions

• Introduction
• Welcome participants and thank them
• Introduce yourself
• Describe the research project on and the other
  components of the work
• Provide an overview of the subjects to be covered
• Explain that participants need not provide
  personal information unless they choose to

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Developing Focus Group Questions

• Introduction
• Explain that participants comments will be
  compiled with information from others in the
  group
• Explain in advance that the facilitator will
  guide the questions to ensure that the group
  stays on one topic at a time and that some
  responses may need to be cut short
• Set ground rules that each participant must
  respect the views of other participants

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Developing Focus Group Questions

• 1. Isolate 3-4 major themes
• Develop 3-5 questions for each theme
• Develop probes for each question
• Allocate time for each theme
• Start with an ice breaker
• When possible, order questions to allow
  participants to begin with the easy or general
  questions
• Positive questions should come before negative
  questions

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Developing Focus Group Questions

• Never ask a question that gives you a yes or
  no answer
• Refrain from asking why questions
• Avoid leading or biased questions
• Avoid examples
• Keep questions simple

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Developing Focus Group Questions

• Consider using if you were in charge questions
• Adapt the language to the level of the
  participants
• Consider cultural and language issues
• Repeat or rephrase the question when necessary,
  use probes

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Types of questions

• Opening
• Quick, factual question to make participants feel
  comfortable and encourage everyone to talk
• Introductory
• Begins focus on the topic
• Transition
• Closing

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Testing the questions

• Test questions with members of your target group
• Focus on smooth transitions
• Rewrite questions until they are as brief as
  possible

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Analyzing and reporting results

• Avoid delay
• Compare data within a group and among groups
• Look for patterns and themes within questions and
  across questions
• Consider nonverbal communication
• Code the data

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Analyzing and reporting results

• Indicate areas of consensus
• Use participants illustrative quotes
• Beware of limited thinking
• Seek feedback from group participants,
  co-researchers and others

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• INTERVIEWS

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What is an interview

• A one-sided conversation between the interviewer
  and the respondent
• A way of listening to people and learning from
  them
• A qualitative research method that is open-ended
• A discussion around a predetermined set of topics

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When to use an interview

• To assess attitudes and perceptions,
  satisfaction, awareness and issues related to
  participation
• When the questions are sensitive in nature
• When key decision makers are not available
  (willing) to participate in a focus group or
  other group discussion
• When more topics need to be covered than possible
  in a focus group

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When to use an interview

• Key Informant Interviews
• Key Informants are people who know a subject in
  depth and can provide background information or
  perspective that is valuable to understanding the
  larger issues
• Key Informant Interviews can be conducted early
  on to inform decisions regarding who to interview
  and what to ask. They can also be a preliminary
  step to a focus group.

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Benefits of an interview

• Respondents may be more honest and willing to
  share information candidly
• Allows for topics to be explored in depth
• More topics than a focus group and sometimes
  greater depth on the topics (allows for more
  probing on a response)
• Usually has a higher response rate than surveys

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Drawbacks of an interview

• Lack of anonymity that survey provides
• Danger of over generalizing
• Data can be difficult and time consuming to
  analyze
• Less efficient than focus groups (more time, more
  manpower)

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Telephone interviews

• Benefits
• Save time and money
• Respondents may be more honest
• Interviewer is less likely to influence the
  responses
• Drawbacks
• May be harder to demonstrate empathy, build trust
• Respondent may be less likely to elaborate

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Similarities to focus groups

• Interviewer must be a good listener, focused,
  prepared and remain neutral
• Questions are similarly constructed, but with
  less emphasis on generating conversation
• Questions should be clearly worded and language
  should be appropriate to the target population
• Questions should be tested and refined

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Interview Consistency

• Open-ended or exploratory interviews vary from
  one respondent to the next - questions are
  written more as a guide to a conversation with
  the goal of covering topics
• Highly structured interviews use a standard set
  of questions asked the same way of each
  respondent
• Determine in advance. Depends upon
• Goal of the interviews
• of respondents
• of interviewers
• Role of interviewers

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Interviewer Training

• If respondents answers are going to be tallied
  and compared, importance of following question
  wording, recording responses as given
• Interviewers should be instructed on how to
  handle questions that are misunderstood or
  answered incompletely
• Joint training of interviewers, include practice
  w/the guide

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Conducting an interview

• Describe research project, purpose of interview,
  use of data (how presented and for what),
  overview of subjects to be covered
• Interviewer should assure interviewee that
  his/her confidentiality will be maintained and
  let respondents know that they can designate
  certain responses as confidential
• Invite respondent to ask for clarity on question
  meaning, etc.

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Analyzing and reporting results

• Note additional issues and comments at the end of
  the instrument, review across respondents
• Clean-up interview notes soon after conducting
• Tally and compare answers across respondents
• Indentify and code themes across questions,
  across respondents
• Use participants illustrative examples and
  quotes