Focus Groups

 What is a Focus Group?

A focus group is a research method which is used to gather data through group interaction (B2B International, Accessed 2021). The group will be compromised of a small number of participants who have been carefully selected to discuss a specific topic. Generally, a focus group should have 8-10 participants, if there are too many people this can limit the ability to get ideas from all participants, having 8-10 people means you get a mix of different ideas and perspectives without it becoming to difficult to manage (Lotich, P., 2011). Focus Group surveys are a qualitative research method which can be either done by a market research company which recruits participants or nowadays online forums and chat platforms are used to conduct focus groups (Ghelber, A., 2020) .Focus groups are commonly used to gauge opinion and gather information from users about products, services and features before they have been developed (Experience UX, Accessed 2021). The participants chosen to take part in the focus groups are chosen usually after filling screener questionnaires which allows the researchers to ensure a good mix of people to represent the target audience for the project. The researcher will design discussion points before beginning the focus groups, the questions asked will all be used to get a better understanding of how the audience feel about the product before it is taken into development. Focus groups are usually used in the early stages of the products lifecycle, this is because it gives the researchers a chance to gain feedback from their specific demographic in order to make further changes to the product before its release. This method of research gathering can also be used later on in the products lifecycle to validate concepts or even choose between prototypes and different designs before launching the product (Experience UX, Accessed 2021). Participants for a focus groups are selected based on a set of predetermined criteria (Psychographics and Demographics) such as age, gender, location, socioeconomic status, race and many more (Devault, G., 2020). In order to make a good focus group which provides insight onto how the target audience perceive a product you must have a specific goal in mind and a specific audience base. For example Lotich, P 2011 suggested that when working at a paediatric hospital, a focus group was used to improve customer experience, in this case the company gather parents that use the hospitals services as participants, they asked them questions based on their personal experience at the hospital and asked them what could be improved, from this focus group the hospital found that to improve customer experience they should design a more comfortable parent lounge for parents that have to stay there with their sick children for long stays. Here we can see the hospital had a clear goal in mind for the focus group, find ways to improve customer experience; they also chose participants who would work best for the study, parents that have to use the hospital; as an end result they was able to improve their hospital for their specific audience, making the focus group successful. 

Procedure and Sampling Method

There are many methods for selecting participants, the type of sampling used will depend on how you will use the information. The most common sampling method within focus groups is "convenience sampling", this means that you select members of the community who you think will provide you with the best information for example, if you was to conduct a focus group with the goal of finding out whether a kids animation will be successful, the most obvious participants would be children and their parents. 

Click here to read more about other sampling methods in my questionnaire research. 

Benefits of Using a Focus Group

• Unlike one to one interviews, focus groups allow members to interact and influence each other during discussion which can give you some valuable feedback on the product. 
• Using focus groups allows you to gather a lot of qualitative data (Devault, G., 2020) which can offer a lot of more insight on how the customers perceive a product than qualitative data. 
• Focus groups are great as you can gather data in so many ways, the tone of voice a participant uses when speaking of a product, or their body language as well as what they are actually saying all give the researcher a better understanding of how the audience feels about a particular product. 
• Although qualitative data which you can analyse is important, focus groups can help businesses make sense of the numbers and get a deeper understanding of their consumers.

Limitations of Using a Focus Group

• Potential for "group think" in which participants will be swayed by the opinions of other more dominant members and feel pressured to conform. (Experience UX, Accessed 2021)
• In some cases they can be more expensive to conduct than other forms of research gathering such as questionnaires. You may have to compensate participants in the discussion whereas with things such as a questionnaire the main expense is on distributing the survey.
• Some participants may feel hesitant to answer questions about sensitive topics, some participants may be very introverted making them hesitant to answer as well. (Ghelber, A., 2020). 
• Since focus groups are a very small sample of your audience they may not accurately represent the views of society as a whole therefore, requiring you to complete additional research to cross-check results. (Ghelber, A., 2020)
• They primarily only offer qualitative data which can be harder to analyse than quantitative data.

Conclusion

Focus groups are a great way to gain qualitative research on a product, service, issue etc. however, cannot stand alone as the only research you conduct in most situations. In many cases they can be very time consuming however, compared to a questionnaire at least you get all the information in one sitting whereas with surveys you must await every participants response. In many cases as focus groups have very few participants, they can reflect the opinions of the population quite poorly, questionnaires allow you to easily target a lot of different people at the same time giving you a range of data which can later be analysed in order to come up with the best strategy for each business. Furthermore, focus groups are good because you are more confident that the responses given are truthful as you can monitor body language and tone of voice as well whereas with a questionnaire you cannot guarantee the responses are true or whether the participant is just giving any answer to get it over with. Overall, I do believe that focus groups are a great way of gathering research however, I believe it is important to conduct many different methods of research ad analyse all of it to find the most accurate result which represents the opinions of all the population rather than a small minority. 

References 

B2B International, Accessed 2021, What is a focus group (Online)

Available at - https://www.b2binternational.com/research/methods/faq/what-is-a-focus-group/

Experience UX, Accessed 2021, What are focus groups? (Online)

Available at - https://www.experienceux.co.uk/faqs/what-are-focus-groups/

Devault, G. 2020, What is a Market Research Focus Group? (Online)

Available at - https://www.thebalancesmb.com/what-is-a-market-research-focus-group-2296907

Lotich, P., 2011, What is the Purpose and Advantages of Focus Group Interviews? (Online)

Available at - https://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/what-purpose-and-advantages-focus-group-interviews

Ghelber, A., 2020. Disadvantages of Focus Groups (Online)

Available at - https://www.revuze.it/blog/disadvantages-of-focus-groups/

Dawson, S., Manderson, L., 1993. A Manual for the Use of Focus Groups (Book)