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Focus Group Recruiting
Among the most widely used research
tools in the social sciences are group depth interviews, or
focus groups. Since first being established, focus groups
have become an increasingly frequent research tool for
applied social scientists in program evaluation, marketing,
public policy, advertising and communications.
What distinguishes the focus group technique from the wider range of research methods is the dependence of group interaction to produce data and insights that would be less accessible when missing the interaction found in a group. This is the key distinguishing feature of focus group research and what makes it an interesting technique to use.
Focus groups are applied when it is important to not only determine what participants think but to uncover why they think the way they do. Focus groups achieve this through organized group discussion where participants express their views about a particular topic, and encouraged to elaborate with reasons why they hold these views.
Focus group research gives a number of advantages relative to other methods:
- Focus groups provide data from a group of people more quickly and at less cost than compared to individual interviews.
- Focus groups allow researchers to interact directly with respondents giving them the opportunity to clarify answers through additional probing.
- The open format found in focus group sessions allow researchers an opportunity to obtain rich response in a participants own words. Further interaction uncovers a deeper meaning.
- Focus groups allow respondents to react to and build upon other responses, this cumulative effect produces better quality answers when compared to individual research settings.
- Focus group results can be easier to understand then more complex survey research that employs statistical analyses.
Focus groups can be targeted by selecting participants within a defined segment. When recruiting, the qualifiers must ensure participants are knowledgeable about the topic and of sufficient number to support robust group discussion.
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