Focus Group Workshop

Important: each method has minimum requirements for data collection. Always review method requirements on the Method Requirements page BEFORE designing and executing your study!

Directions:

This workshop consists of a self-paced slide show, tasks for you to complete and bring to class, as well as links and basic information below. The slides are available in Keynote and PDFs (PDFs are accessible for screen readers). These slides are plain and designed to download fast and simply provide you with information you need for this course. You must submit the required materials here AND participate in the in class workshop for credit.

Review the materials below, download the slides, complete the required task and submit to Canvas, participate in the physical class meeting

ALL INTERVIEWEES FOR YOUR PROJECTS MUST SIGN CONSENT FORMS. SIGNED FORMS MUST BE SUBMITTED (scanned or clearly photographed and converted to PDF) TO GET CREDIT FOR THOSE METHODS (for your project, NOT this workshop).  Note: there are iPhone and Android apps that allow you to convert a photo to a pdf.

Keynote: Focus Group_Workshop_Comm 151i_hybrid_2015.key Download Focus Group_Workshop_Comm 151i_hybrid_2015.key

PDF: Focus Group_Workshop_Comm 151i_hybrid_2015.key.pdf Download Focus Group_Workshop_Comm 151i_hybrid_2015.key.pdf

Link Links to an external site.Conducting a Focus Group

Link Links to an external site.

Six quick facilitation tips

Focus Group Consent Form: FocusGroup_ConsentForm_151i.doc Download FocusGroup_ConsentForm_151i.doc

Here are a few apps to convert pics to pdfs for easy consent form uploading!

Genius Scan

Available for iPhone, Android, and Windows Phones and it is FREE!

Get all versions at http://thegrizzlylabs.com/ Links to an external site.

Handyscanner

Handy Scanner Free turns your phone or tablet into a powerful document scanner. Use to submit signed consent forms. You can also scan multipage documents, whiteboards, business cards and so much more. The post-processing filters give you the greatest quality with the lowest background noise. Then, just share them to GMail, Dropbox or any other application. Better yet, use instant uploading to Dropbox! Produces both PDF and JPEG images!

Android (free)

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.halfmobile.scannerfree&hl=en Links to an external site.

iPhone .99 cents

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/handy-scanner/id419484423?mt=8 Links to an external site.

To earn credit you need to complete the tasks below.

1. Using this workshop, design a short focus group that includes some sort of activity (include activity design in submission).
2. Take the example question from the interviewing workshop:

“What was the topic and the person you called on the last voice call you made on your mobile?”

“Why did you choose to use a voice call versus a text or other electronic communication?”

“Take me through your process of deciding whether or not make a voice call versus a text or other electronic communication?”

3. Add two more questions from your interview.
4. Then re-write/re-phrase these questions so they are conducive to the group setting and encourage people to talk about it.
5. Gather a group of friends/family/co-workers of at least 5 people for your focus group. Okay to use 151i peers.
6. Video record (ideally) or audio record your FG and take careful notes so you can practice and get material to code (I do not need the recording, it is for your reference).
7. Compare and contrast the amount and types of data you gathered compared to your one-on-one interview w/ probes (150-200 words).
8. Take the data you collected from the interviewing workshop and the organization and categorization ideas from the in-class session and come up with three categories of human communication behavior that the data might go under.
9. To earn credit for this workshop you must: complete all the above tasks and submit them in one document to Canvas by the workshop due date.

In class, we will continue exploring coding the data you gathered. Toward that end, here are a few videos that discuss it.

Link Links to an external site.How to analyze focus group data

Thanks to Nicole for finding this!

Activity

A focus group is basically a group discussion or interview and you can simply arrange people around a table and ask a series of questions in the hope of getting the type of dynamic cross-talk and interaction that makes focus groups such a great methods. However, if you think about this from the perspective of the participant this can be a little boring. Therefore, it is a good idea to have some activities for participants to prime them for your discussion.

A classic ice breaker can always help if you have a zero history group (never met each other). At the very least have people introduce themselves and perhaps ask them a general question about the topic. For example, what is the first thing you do when you log on to Facebook?

Here are few suggestions to give you the idea.

1. Thumbs Up/Down: This type of exercise allows for quick and simple non-verbal responses to topics or ideas. Participants simply give thumbs up (ok) or thumbs down (not ok) based on a prompt. For example, if you are looking at how people communicate using text messaging, you could ask - "breaking up via text?"

2. Values Walk/Human Likert Scale: this activity gets people moving. Set up room with one point which could be strongly agree and another strongly disagree or similar polar opposites and have people take positions based on their feeling about something. As you discuss the issue/prompt allow people to adjust their position.

3. Written Answers/Survey: start by having participants fill out a brief questionnaire (not your survey). This provides participants an opportunity to think about your questions and answer them without input from other participants as well as creating an artifact that you can collect and analyze. Then move into discussing the questions as a group.

4. Free Writing: similar to the written answers (above) but in a more narrative form based on a broad prompt. You could even use your research question.

5. Audio/Visual: bringing in video or other media can be a real help in sparking discussion. So if you are looking at communication behavior on Facebook have them log onto Facebook. Or expose them media and ask for their reactions or analysis; or to arrange images in a particular order.

6. Story Telling: have each member of the group tell a brief story about their experiences around your topic. For example, most interesting or important text message.

7. Roll your Own: be creative! The goal is to make people comfortable and have fun providing useful data for your study. Students have done everything from improv to mini-art projects. It can be as elaborate as you want, keep the focus on you topic. Remember, the core of this are your very specific questions.