Reading: How to… organise a focus group
What I had expected when thinking about structuring a focus group?
While I sent out the questionnaire to the students, only one student responded to take part in the focus group. Initially, I had pictured I will be able to find/ recruit at least 4-5 students to take part in this focus group, only to learn that students did not have time for it.
I had [initially] chosen the focus group because:
- Brings together a group to discuss a certain topic
- Participants can share their experiences with one another, enabling dialogue
- The interactions – conversation/ dialogue = learning and hearing [diverse perspectives] one another
- Creating a space for learning and hearing one another
What to keep in mind?
- The size of the focus group (I had initially planned for 4-5 volunteered students)
The space of the focus group – is the space safe? According to the article ‘Safe spaces: what are they, and why they matter’, “The sense of not fitting in, and being othered in spaces or tokenized, can be very emotionally harming, which is why it’s necessary for individuals who feel othered in most spaces to have a place, such as; a social event, workshops, or political meetings, in which they can meet others who feel the same and have a space in which they can freely express themselves without being challenged by hateful and ignorant voice.” (Shades of Noir, 2017)
- Reviewing the aims and objectives of the research – the task I will be asking them to do, will that probe dialogue? Will the dialogue answer my enquiry?
- ‘Danger’ areas of discussion: is the discussion useful to the research topic? During the exchange of dialogue, how can I not intervene too much? How can the participants engage? For this I had thought about asking the students to review the reference list (they can pick specific resources as well) and probe around the questions of how did they find the resource list – why did you choose certain references, what should be done more, why is it important to have this list, how will you use it.
- My positionality – will students hesitate to share when I am there?
- Letting everyone to contribute in the discussion
- How can I document the focus group to analyse later on? Methods to consider – recording, observation (this might miss certain parts of the discussion), note taking.
Revisiting Workshop 2, 26 October – Document analysis as a qualitative research method (Bowen, 2009)
-Data: excerpts, quotations, or entire passages.
-Qualitative research is expected to draw upon multiple (at least 2) sources of evidence – through the use of different data source and methods.
- methods: interviews, participant or non-participant observation, etc.
I will be using Observational method to collect data from the workshop – this included quotes from dialogue being exchanged and some of the students’ work (the ones who gave consent).
(Update) Failed attempt:
Only 1 person responded to take part. Due to the limitation of time, instead of a focus group, the data will be collected via questionnaire format via google forms. The participants will be anonymised and will be reminded that their responses can be withdrawn if they wish to.
The questions are designed for the participants to engage with the resource list and share their experiences around the introduction of diverse perspectives and their importance of it.
Questionnaire responses :
Bibliography:
Shades of noir. (2017) Safe spaces: What are they, and why they matter. Available at: https://shadesofnoir.org.uk/safe-spaces-what-are-they-and-why-they-matter/ [Accessed November 28th, 2022]
University of Bristol (2017) How to organise…focus groups. Available at: https://www.publicengagement.ac.uk/sites/default/files/publication/how_to_organise_focus_groups.pdf [Accessed November 30th, 2022]