RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY
3.6 DATA GENERATING INSTRUMENTS
3.6.4 Focus groups
Focus groups are a valuable tool to collect a lot of data in a short space of time (Babbie & Mouton, 1998 & 2001; Denscombe, 1998 & 2002; Durrheim, 1999). They are basically interviews on a directed topic with a group of people at the same time (Goss & Leibach, 1996; Kreuger 1988). Focus groups are used to get different people’s responses on a given topic in the same environmental setting (Babbie & Mouton, 1998; Durrheim, 2002). Focus groups also help researchers tap into the many different forms of communication that people use in day-to-day interaction,including jokes, anecdotes, and arguing. Gaining access to such a variety of communication is useful because people'sknowledge and attitudes are not entirely encapsulated in reasoned responses to direct questions. Everyday forms of communicationmay tell us as a lot about what people know orexperience. Focus groups are thus able to reach the parts thatother methods cannot reach, thus revealing dimensions of understandingthat often remain untapped by more conventional data generation methods. Another distinct benefit of focus group research is that one can gain insight into people’s shared understandings of everyday life and the ways in which individuals are influenced by others in a group situation. In this investigation I elicited responses on education and language learning in the Gabonese culture and in the current Gabonese education system. It is common for the group session to be audio-taped (or sometimes videotaped) for later analysis (Kreuger, 1988). In this investigation I audio-taped the focus group interviews
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The focus interviewing process can be divided into three stages (Krueger, 1988): Conceptualisation, Interview, Analysis and reporting. In the conceptualisation stage one would decide who your participants will be (e.g. their demographic characteristics such as age, gender, nationality, education) and how you are going to plan the process to best obtain the results you are seeking. In the conceptualisation phase the questions for the focus group interviews must also be finalised. Questions to be posed to the group must be well- structured and clear to elicit the desired responses. I used four questions in the focus group interviews with the group of 19 Gabonese participants in August 2006:
What do you think is a good way to learn a new language (e.g. English)? What methods or strategies do you use to learn English?
How are Gabonese children and young adults taught English at school, college and university?
How would you teach English/facilitate the learning of English?In this conceptualisation phase the researcher should also decide how many participants to have per group. Generally, the recommended number of people per group is six to ten, but some researchers use up to fifteen members in a group (Goss & Leinbach, 1996) while others use as few as four (Kitzinger, 1995)
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It is very important to plan focus group interviews well and participants to each group must be selected with care to ensure that each group member will participate equally in divulging information. Meetings must be scheduled well in advance and in comfortable venues to put participants at ease.The next stage in the focus group interviewing process is the actual interviewing. Once a meeting for the interviewing has been arranged, the role of the group facilitator becomes critical, especially in terms of providing clear explanations of the purpose of the group, helping people feel at ease, and facilitating interaction between group members (Durrheim, 2002). I facilitated the focus groups in my investigation. I made the purpose of the investigation clear to the group of 19 participants in a big group before I invited these prospective participants to join the focus group interviews. 22 Gabonese attended the big group information session, but only 19 of them arrived for the focus group interviews since I explained that ethical considerations in research determine that all participation is voluntary. On the day of the focus group interviews I again explained the background to my investigation as well as the process of focus group interviewing. I was well prepared for each focus group session and I checked at the beginning of each session whether each participant understood the process by asking each participant whether he/she understood or wanted to ask questions. These 19 Gabonese participants were eager to participate in the focus groups. Their willingness to participate in the focus groups could possibly have stemmed from the fact that they, like me, are committed to teaching and committed to improving
teaching practice continually. We were colleagues from different backgrounds discussing a common situation: language learning. A two-way process was thus immediately established whereby I gained insight into their language learning experiences and they gained insight into different aspects of language learning strategies.
In each interviewing session I had to establish rapport with the participants and this was done by an informal discussion on our families and teaching experience at the beginning of the interviewing session. I found it worked well with each group as the participants were all very eager to speak. I had no problem in eliciting responses: my greatest challenge was to direct the process so that participants would have equal opportunity to voice their opinions. During the meeting the group facilitator should promote debate, perhaps by asking open questions. I did this throughout the interviews. The facilitator may need to challenge participants, especially to draw out people’s differences, and elicit a diverse range of meanings on the topic under discussion. Diverse responses emerged spontaneously from each focus group. Sometimes the group facilitator will have to probe for details, or move things forward when the conversation is drifting or has reached a minor conclusion. The participants were all so eager that I never encountered this situation in the focus groups. Facilitators also have to keep the interview session focused and sometimes they may deliberately have to steer the conversation back on course. The facilitator is encouraged not to show too much approval (Kreuger, 1988), so as to avoid favouring particular participants. I believe I did not favour any participants and I did not experience the participants as being competitive in the group situation. The facilitator must avoid giving personal opinions so as not to influence participants towards any particular position or opinion. I attempted to do all of the above while facilitating the focus group interviews. I felt my role as facilitator was demanding and challenging, but very rewarding – not only for this research, but also for personal gainl. I realised that for focus groups to be successful, the facilitator needs good interpersonal skills: a good listener, non-judgmental and adaptable. These qualities promote the participants’ trust in the facilitator and increase the likelihood of open, interactive dialogue. There needs to be consistency across focus groups and the facilitator should thus be sensitive to the need to maintain a constant standard throughout all the focus group interviews. I focused on maintaining a constant atmosphere throughout all the focus group interviews in an attempt to standardise the elicited responses as far as possible.
The final stage in the focus group interviewing process is analysis and reporting. This will be presented in Chapter 4 of this research report.