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1. AMEI Education Grand Round (Hybrid):Using Focus Groups to Generate Qualitative Data: Possibilities and Challenges24 Jul 2023 (Mon) | 1300 - 1400 | In-person and via Zoom | Venue: Duke-NUS, Training Room 5C, Level 5
Focus groups allow researchers to access the reasons behind participants’ ‘attitudes’, providing insights into why people think as they do and how their views are formed. Besides being a stand-alone method, focus groups can also be used to great advantage as one part of a mixed methods design. Some examples will be provided of studies that have successfully employed mixed methods designs. But focus groups are not for the faint-hearted – they require careful planning and sharp moderating skills, requiring researchers to think on their feet, exploring comparisons and anticipating analysis. The talk will also cover ethical issues, confidentiality, de-briefing, and working in a participatory way. Limitations of focus groups will also be discussed and the potential and challenges of virtual focus groups will be explored.
Registration Details:
This workshop will concentrate on issues surrounding the planning stage of focus group research. Consideration needs to be given to sampling and convening of groups, in order to ensure that there is ample scope for comparison. Using the workshop participants as a potential ‘focus group sampling pool’, an initial short exercise will consider how to make best use of the potential provided by the similarities and differences between those present.
Although focus group topic guides tend to be very simple in comparison to interview schedules, this belies the amount of work that goes into formulating these. Stimulus material offers the key to successful and focused moderating, along with a set of potential questions. The second short exercise will involve workshop participants being presented with a small range of possible stimulus materials and they will be invited to select those they consider to be most likely to help explore a topical, but light-hearted current issue (to be decided nearer the time). (For those participants who also plan to attend Workshop 2, there will be an opportunity to put these materials to work.)
Workshop Fee (subject to change):
This workshop will outline some of the ‘tricks of the trade’, with regard to generating in-depth focus group data. Moderators have to think on their feet, using prompts to a much greater degree than is the case with more detailed interview schedules. With focus groups ‘less can be more’ and it can also, at times, be useful to allow for silences while research participants formulate their thoughts, explanations, justifications, and tentative hypotheses.
Using the stimulus materials chosen and questions developed by participants in Workshop 1, Workshop 2 participants will have the opportunity to try these out in small groups (each with one moderator). Whether moderator or focus group participant, there will be opportunities to learn through this hands-on exercise.
Finally, there will be some discussion about thinking comparatively and anticipating analysis, even as data is generated.
Prof Rosaline (Rose) Barbour started her career in Medical Sociology. She has done research in a variety of topics, including the roles and responsibilities of midwives, the demands of HIV/AIDS-related work, and the views and professional practice of GPs, mental health, reproductive health and childcare practitioners.
Prof Barbour has a particular interest in qualitative methods, and this has resulted in methodological publications in journals spanning a number of specialist fields, as well as several books and chapters. Over the past 25 years, Prof Barbour has run many workshops (throughout the UK, Europe and Canada) on research design, generating and analysing qualitative data, and using focus groups.
