There should be some key question or a set of questions to satisfy your objectives during group discussion session. It's better if you explain them in the methodology part.

You should have a topic guide or discussion guide, which it sounds like you have. Your topic guide is a series of questions and prompts to help you facilitate discussion during your focus group. I would say you should very briefly describe the content of your questions (just a sentence or so) in the methods and then add the full topic guide as a supplementary or additional file. That way the reader can chose to read it or not. Sometimes knowing roughly what questions have been asked can help with the readers interpretation of the results.

Most people choose an intermediate solution by giving a general description of the questions that they used. I personally am a firm believer in providing details about the interview guide for both individual interviews and focus groups because the questions you ask have a strong influence on the data that you get.

Also, many journals now let you include a full interview guide as an "online appendix."

Weranuj Ariyasriwatana Yes you may if the editor demands.

Thank you so much, Ariful Islam Roseanne E Billany David L Morgan Tayyab Amjad for your useful advice, time, and kindness! I really appreciate this. Hope you all have a productive and pleasant week! Aloha.

I agree with David's intermediate solution. For any qualitative method that uses semi-structured guides, it is always a good idea to give some indication of at least the 'main' guiding general questions. It could be considered part of the 'trustworthiness' rogour/audit trail that the researchers are being as transparent as possible. However, depending on word count etc - it might be too much detail to offer the full guide of sub-questions etc. The attached chapter of qualitative data sampling and data collection may assist.

Dean Whitehead Thank you tremendously for sharing your thoughts and the chapter you wrote! I will read it very soon. Stay safe!

Thank you very much, Heather Douglas, for your advice! I will definitely check out the book and the article! Stay wholesome :)

My opinion is that transparecy is always a good thing. Not having any clue about the questions you asked can make it hard to assess your findings and conclusions.

I agree with David L Morgan, Dean Whitehead and Heather Douglas. Sure, a clear protocol of how the FG (or interview) was conducted is necessary, and to have a clear explanation of the questions asked is relevant to interpret the research findings better.

The questions are the meat of your research. To have only the responses of the focus group participants would not provide any context in which to judge the responses. When you design your questions, you might try asking the some of the same question from different perspectives. In the article you would explain why you chose the wording you chose for the questions. With a focus group you are trying to find out the what and why of the respondents thinking. Prudence Zollinger, PhD, LCSW - Oregon and Kentucky

Antonio M. Oller-Marcén Sergio Rivaroli Prudence Zollinger Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! I really appreciate your thoughts and suggestions. Hope you all have a productive week and stay wholesome. Aloha.

You do not need to list every question you asked, because you are allowed to ask follow-up and probing questions. But show the basic protocol of questions that was your starting place.