Yes, if you have decided to use focus groups, then get a book. However, you may want to consider whom you are bringing together and whether they will operate best in a focus group structure. Doing my field work in Kazakhstan, I found that one or two people tended to dominate the group. With such domination the group could not reach synergy. Thus, I decided to work with smaller groups of peers instead. I found people who worked together effectively and did not have significant differences in status. Peers could interact comfortably with each other and felt comfortable challenging what each other said. You have to know your context and fit the method to your context.

Practical advice - look for someone who has experience in FGI and try to observe his or her work for some time. Of course, reading is also important.

Focus group is a form of group interview that places particular importance on interaction between participants. Focus groups interview is ‘focused’ which means that it is used for a specific purpose and that a fair amount of advance planning/preparing is required. The group discussion must be guided by a moderator using a carefully designed interview guide - meaning the moderator is required to determine what should be asked. The questioning process needs to be structured in a particular way – start by opening questions after the moderator introduces him/herself, explains the goals of the research, and thanks the participants for their time and involvement in the study. The first question is a general inquiry into the topic, and should be followed by specific questions relevant to the study. After the group of participants reflects on these opening questions, the moderator should ask more in-depth questions for clarification or validation purposes. Interesting issues that have been emerged during focus group discussions should be further examined by the moderator by asking relevant questions. The formulation of questions thus depends largely on the extent to which the moderator feels a need for the clarification of issues, to validate certain information that have been gathered during the discussions. During the session, the moderator should not losing control of the discussion to participants who deviate from the topic, probe when interesting ideas emerge, and ensure that everyone has an equal chance to participate and each question is answered during the session.

Conducting accurate focus groups depends on the skills of the moderator, appropriate note taking, the accurate transcription of the discussions and well organized focus groups. In addition the location of the focus groups should be well thought out. For best results, a group of 6 to 8 participants is highly recommended. The interviews should be recorded or an assistant moderator should assign to record key notes of the discussions.

Hi!

I think that all the answers are great: just look for somebody who as already some experience and look for some book and WORKING PAPERS.

But I think that there's one think that is really important to consider: the specific strategy and typology of your Focus Groups depends on the aims of your research. There isn't only a specific strategy or a tipology of FC. They all depend on the aim of your research, on the population that will partecipate to your FC, on the phase of the research in which FC will be conducted, and the other methodologies you will use together with FC.

For example: are you using a mixed method strategy? Is FC the first technique you will use? are they all men/women/adults/children? etc. etc.

Cheers

Alessandro Porrovecchio

University of the Littoral Opal Coast

URePSSS Lab

Abdollahimohammad,

If one is new to focus groups, the very practical small book series entitled Focus Group Kit is a series of short, focused books on designing FGs. It is very practical with a mix of theoretical rationale for the actions and practical exercises (Richard Krueger & Jean King, Sage Publishers).  Thus, it provides a solid, practical overview for one entering focus group research.

There is a small book on each of the following topics:  1) Focus Group Guidebook, 2) Planning Focus Groups, 3) Developing Questions, 4) Moderating, 5) Involving Community Members, 6) Analyzing and Reporting FG Results.  

All the previous answers were useful and supportive. I recommend to read about focus groups sections in qualitative research book and I would suggest Bryman and Bell (2007) as introduction. Also, try to find out about the researchers who already conducted focus groups in their research and follow their advice.

Here is a bibliography, with brief annotations, on focus groups.

Barbour, R. (2008). Doing Focus Groups. Sage. An introductory book that is part of a larget “kit” on qualitative research.

Barbour R. and J. Kitzinger (1999) Developing Focus Group Research. Sage. This edited collection from Britain is notable for its chapters on both participatory, action-oriented approaches to focus groups and discourse-oriented approaches to analysis.

Bloor, M., J. Frankland, M. Thomas, and K. Robson (2001) Focus Groups in Social Research. Sage. An introductory book from a group of British researchers with an emphasis on health issues.

Edmunds, H. (1999) The Focus Group Research Handbook. Chicago, IL: American Marketing Association. This is a useful introduction from a marketing research point of view. The appendices include several samples of interview guides and brief summary reports.

Fern, E. F. (2001) Advanced Focus Group Research. Sage. Despite the title, most of the material in this book is relatively basic. It is most useful for its distinction between Exploratory, Experiential, and Clinical Tasks. The overall orientation is to social psychological theory rather than practical application.

Greenbaum, T. (1997) The Handbook for Focus Group Research. Sage. An introductory book from the best-known authority on focus groups in the field of marketing research.

Greenbaum, T. (1999) Moderating Focus Groups: A Practical Guide for Group Facilitation. Sage. Mostly introductory material that covers what you would need to know as a moderator in marketing research. Does have one chapter that covers advanced approaches to moderating.

Krueger, R. A. and Casey, M. A. (2009) Focus Groups: A Practical Guide for Applied Research (4th Ed.). Sage. The is the most useful introduction to community-oriented focus groups, i.e., where the researcher team is usu-ally working for a non-profit or government agency, and where the product is typically a final report rather than a published article.

Merton, R K., Fiske, M and Kendall, P L. (1990) The Focused Interview (2nd. ed.), New York: Free Press. This is a reiusse of a book that originally appeared in 1956, along with a later essay by Merton. In provides use-ful insights into the origins of focus groups, but as the title hints, it devotes equal attention to both group and individual interviews.

Morgan, D. L. (1993) Successful Focus Groups: Advancing the State of the Art. Sage. This edited collection provided some of the first published work on focus groups that went beyond the intro-ductory level. It is notable for several chapters that cover the link between focus groups and survey research.

Morgan, D. L. (1997) Focus Groups as Qualitative Research. Sage Qualitative Methods Series, Vol. 16 (2nd ed.). The volume in the Sage “little blue books” series provides an introduction to focus groups within the context of academic approaches to qualitative research. It is directed at graduate students or other researchers who are relatively new to field of qualitative research.

Morgan D. L. and R. A. Krueger (1998) Focus Group Kit. Sage.

   Vol. 1 Focus Group Guidebook (Morgan)

   Vol. 2 Planning Focus Groups (Morgan)

   Vol. 3 Developing Questions for Focus Groups (Krueger)

   Vol. 4 Moderating Focus Groups (Krueger)

   Vol. 5 Involving Community Members in Focus Groups (Krueger)

   Vol. 6 Analyzing and Reporting Focus Group Research (Krueger)

This collection of relatively brief volumes adds up to a reference source that provides relatively detailed discus-sions on each of the major elements in focus group research. Note, however, that much of this material is more oriented toward community-based rather than academically-oriented focus groups, and this is especially true of the volume on analysis.

Puchta, C. & J. Potter (2004) Focus Group Practice. Sage. This is a more advanced book that concentrates on moderating and interaction in focus groups. It combines ex-tended examples from marketing focus groups with an approach based on Conversation Analysis and Discursive Psychology. The authors have a notably skeptical view on what they call “ Perceptions, Opinions, Beliefs, and Attitudes” or POBA.

Stewart D., P. Shamdasani & D. Rook (2007) Focus Groups: Theory and Practice (2nd Ed). Sage. An introductory book that puts more emphasis on theory rather than practice.

Vaughn, S., J. Schumm, and J. Sinagub (1996) Focus Group Interviews in Education and Psychology. Sage. An introductory book with an emphasis on applications in education (and considerably less in psychology). Tends to take a rather mechanical, “one right way of doing

Focus groups are useful as they help to explore, develop and refine initial research questions and interview schedules. They can also be useful as part of a developing evaluative framework to assess client needs and the outcomes of such investigation. Focus groups use interview schedules but these differ in scope, nature and intention from other research interviews. This is because of the unique nature of group dynamics and insights gained from interaction between participants. Focus groups offer a collective set of values, experiences and observations of participants that are later interpreted in context. Sometimes group ‘synergy’ or consensus (agreement) on issues occurs, but this is not always the case. If a series of focus groups are scheduled, initial interviews usually identify broad issues and perspectives related to the focus of the study, while subsequent interviews seek to prioritise and narrow down generated issues.

There are obvious benefits of focus group interviews. One of the main benefits of this method of data collection is that they are often less intimidating than individual interviews. The focus group method allows access to participants who may find individual interviews intimidating or inappropriate. They potentially offer supportive group interactions as each member is encouraged to identify, describe, analyse and resolve issues. They are particularly useful in discovering new information or obtaining different perspectives on the same topic. Focus group interviews are also useful in gaining participants’ views, beliefs, values and perceptions on why they think and feel the way they do. Focus group interviews are usually more economical to conduct than individual interviews.

At the same time, there are limitations to focus group interviews Focus groups may not explore issues as deeply as one-on-one interviews. At the same time, as they are not as intimate and private as individual interviews, they tend not to uncover sensitive or potentially embarrassing information. Researchers generally need quite high levels of interviewing expertise to conduct focus group interviews. For instance, they require ‘gate- keeping’ skills to help avoid ‘group think’ outcomes, prevent any individuals from dominating conversations as well as teasing contributions from quieter members. That said, where the focus group does not present any of these dilemmas the researchers should be mostly anonymous, often only needing to contribute to commence, prompt occasionally and finalise the session.

I had my training with Richard Krueger. I highly recommend his work.

A focus group is a structured type of interview.  I suggest writing a list of questions (interview guide) to guide the conversation.  

Either the client needs to brief you on their objectives or you need to determine them and write a discussion guide to make sure that you cover all of the important points.  Are you going to audio tape and video tape the proceedings? You will need to get a waiver from the participants

I find Jamie Hardings "Qualitative Data Analysis from Start to Finish" especially helpful in guiding how the methods should be conducted with respect to the upcoming analysis, step by step and very much "hands on"! Also easy to read and follow

http://www.uk.sagepub.com/booksProdDesc.nav?prodId=Book235178

Richard Krueger's books easy to read and very informative. You might find the link below interesting.

http://www.qualitative-researcher.com/listening/dr-richard-krueger-on-qualitative-listening/

Focus group interview is a data gathering tool in qualitative research. It is useful when you are focusing on a predetermined group of subjects who you know will give you rich data to support your study. However, your specific research area/setting in terms of of where and whom will greatly determine your methodology. For instance, a group or class of students can be your focus group, your professional association can be another, your religious and or cultural association can be another, etc. Usually, researchers opt for focus groups when they have been able to determine the type of subjects they need to supply them relevant data for the research.  

I posted this in answer to another Focus Group question. I thought it relevant here too.

My experience with conducting focus groups fall into three general areas.

1- Political campaigns and/or commercial product marketing. In these groups the researchers are most interested in behavior change dynamics, eg: what causes a participant to move from position A to position B... from candidate A to candidate B...from brand A to B.

2- Social scientists and health professionals who seem to be most interested in what position a participant holds and why... what belief a person has and why. (More interested in personal/psycho-social and less interested in behavior change or dynamic content.) I think there should be more overlap here with the dynamic research described above.

3- Researchers who are developing and refining quantitative measurement (usually surveys). Here, FG are used prospectively to develop items, eg: how do prospective respondents interpret the term "abstinence" in item #5...or do the respondents hall have a similar understanding of the term "intercourse" in item #7? Also FG are used retrospectively to refine the survey. Here, participants who have participated in a pilot survy are asked about specific items, confusion over item meaning, etc.

I believe the COMBINATION of focus group, interviews, etc. (qualitative methods) and surveys, etc. (quantitative methods) work best.

One of the biggest challenges we face when conducting a focus group (which is really a bringing together a group of people to focus on a particular research concern) is the selection of participants. A focus group can be costly - particularly in rural areas. Here one would want to provide transport to bring participants to the site where the focus group will be conducted and also provide refreshments during or after the focus group. Depending on the skills of the researcher, it might be necessary to contract a facilitator to conduct the focus group. The input needs to be captured, translated if the focus group has been conducted in the vernacular and this is not the language of the researcher - and transcribed so that the data emerging from the focus group is available for analysis. As it is important to get as many views as possible on a topic - it is likely that three or four focus will need to be conducted. A focus group is a powerful tool and adds great value when exploring the views and perceptions on a particular topic by a group of people who represent a larger community. As the community has many diverse  stakeholders, it is difficult to get representatives from all groups and some views might need to be captured through face to face interviews, or other methodologies (telephonic interviews, surveys etc)

There is a useful video on facilitating a focus group here:

http://www.keele.ac.uk/csg/downloads/otherdownloads/

I have attached a good article on designing and conducting focus group interviews. Hope this will be useful also. The document is very explicit to your question and  structured around the process expecially the design of focus group

My advice is that you are well-grounded in your choice of FGs as your data-collection. Question like those might be important to ask:

What are you suppose to study? What can FGs contribute with that individual interviews cannot? What depth of data is you looking for? I the interaction within the FGs of interest in your study? In what way are you planning to analyse your data?

Good luck!

Surely all this information is of great help to those conducting a focus group.  Thank you.