Focus Group Methodology

A focus group is essentially a group interview, or open-ended discussion, on a specific topic (Robson, 2002). Focus groups can be used for a variety of purposes including suggesting ideas, clarifying potential options, reacting to ideas or recommending a course of action, or to plan and evaluate (Krueger & Casey, 2009):

The purpose of conducting a focus group is to listen and gather information. It is a way to better understand how people feel or think about an issue, product or service. Focus groups are used to gather opinions. (p.2)

102 Focus groups are used widely with market research yet were developed by social scientists investigating new ways of conducting interviews during the Second World War. Robert Merton is attributed to have held one of the first focus group interviews in his study exploring morale in the U.S. military. He observed that when people were with others like themselves they appeared to feel more safe and comfortable and consequently revealed sensitive information about themselves (Krueger & Casey, 2009).

There are several areas of criticism for focus groups: participants tend to intellectualise; focus groups do not tap into emotions; participants may make up answers; focus groups produce trivial results; dominant individuals can influence results and conflict bias can occur in the results; and the results are not reliable (Krueger & Casey, 2009; Robson, 2002). In response to these criticisms Krueger & Casey (2009) argue that the role of the facilitator is critical for a focus group to accomplish its purpose. In addition they advocate researchers using a variety of research methods because the problems associated with focus groups are, ‘minimised when researchers use multiple strategies of inquiry’ (Krueger & Casey, 2009 p.13).

Krueger & Casey (2009) suggest several reasons for when a focus group is appropriate which correlate with the purpose for this part of the study:

 the researcher is looking for a range of ideas or feelings that people have about something

 the researcher want ideas to emerge from the group  the researcher needs information to design a further study

 the researcher needs information to help shed light on data already collected

This part of the study was interested in ascertaining what school staff view as important in enabling them to engage parents in the process of decision making. The foci of the discussion were the viewpoints created from the Q-sort

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and the results of the focus group were in turn used to inform the parents’

survey.

7.1.1 Procedure of the focus group

A focus group study often utilises three or four focus groups but sometimes more until theoretical saturation (that is the point where no new insights are being gained) is reached (Krueger & Casey, 2009). The number advocated in focus groups is between 5 and 10 participants (Krueger & Casey, 2009). However, here 34 participants expressed a wish to take part, yet the school would only allow for one focus group meeting due to time constraints. It was decided to hold the focus group with 34 participants, but in order to accommodate the higher numbers participants were placed in groups of 3-5. Each group was asked to discuss each question and then feedback their discussion. Ground rules were discussed and agreed at the beginning of the session to help ensure that all participants felt comfortable, respected and free to give their opinion without the fear of being judged.

A list consisting of 11 features that the school staff felt was important when engaging with parents in decision making was given to each participant (see Appendix G). To compile this list all the statements that describe or refer to an activity that the school could employ when engaging with parents were identified. For example, statement 5 (‘It is important that things are said in an understandable way and adapted to different audiences’) describes an activity

or action of the school’s system whereas statement 17 (‘I believe that parents

being involved in decision making processes should be the norm and be part of the culture’) describes an opinion or attitude. From this list of activities there were 10 statements (2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 15, 20, 21, 23, 34) that were rated as being important (that is rated at 0 or above) by either of the factors. The author decided to spilt statement 6 as it was felt to be quite verbose. Thus a list of 11 features were identified as being the most important when engaging with parents in decision making.

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These features were grouped into the three areas of ‘Communication

Channels’, ‘Time Span’ and ‘Attitude to Parents’. For each feature the same question was asked:

 When the school is... (for example, saying things in an understandable way and adapting language to different audiences)...and you are doing this very well, what does it look like?

 What else does it look like? (repeated until saturation was reached). The answers given were written onto an A3 flipchart. The purpose in raising this question was to allow staff to describe current practices in supporting parental decision making.

7.1.2 Ethical Issues

The ethical issues for the focus group follow the same themes as the ethical issues for the Q-sort. Issues of informed consent, confidentiality and sensitivity were considered and addressed at each stage of the focus group:

 A letter was given to the participants prior to the focus group taking part with details about the purpose of the activity and the procedure to be employed (informed consent)

 The letter clearly informed participants of their right to withdraw from the study at any time and also provided assurance about confidentiality (sensitivity and confidentiality)

 Not recording any identifying factors of the participants (confidentiality)  Opportunities for participants to ask questions and raise queries was

given at the beginning and the end of the focus group (informed consent)  Careful selection of language used and being sensitive to group

dynamics (sensitivity)

 Recording participants’ comments verbatim (informed consent)

 At the end of the survey the participants were asked if they were happy with the comments recorded (informed consent)

105  Agreement was sought with the head teacher regarding the ways in

which a summary of the findings would be made available to participants (informed consent)

7.1.3 Reliability and Validity

Within focus group study designs steps that are advocated to ensure the results are trustworthy and accurate include: pilot-testing the questions; listening to the participants when designing the study to understand the conditions needed for free and open sharing; using a team of facilitators chosen because of their training, experiences, background and sensitivity; and asking participants to verify the summary of comments at the end of the focus group (Krueger & Casey, 2009). There was only one question used in this focus group which was

tested with the school’s head teacher prior to the focus group being carried out.

The focus group was completed in place of the school’s weekly staff meeting and the conditions of the group were pre-determined by the usual conditions of the staff meeting. Once a point of saturation was felt to have been reached for each feature then the list was read out again for the group to verify but there was no need to provide a summary as participants’ comments were written down verbatim.

However it is acknowledged that the number of participants (N=34) in the focus group was much higher than the number advocated (5-10). In addition it was not possible to have a team of facilitators and the author was the only facilitator. It is recognised that these will have had an impact on the validity of the results. To help reduce this threat to the validity the author was able to utilise her skills as an experienced facilitator to ensure the purpose of the group was accomplished; that is to identify the activities and actions that the school staff employ to engage parents in decision making. This included being reflective, active listening, summarising and checking out; and being sensitive to group dynamics.

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