Hello there. In this lesson, I will show you how to start a focus group. It is during an introduction that you give a general explanation about the purpose and objectives of the focus group. I will use examples from a real focus group to provide further explanation and context. At the end of this lesson, you will be able to describe the flow of a focus group and explain three categories of questions to use recalling the examples drawn from the focus group. Let's start off with the video clip of what starting your focus group sounds like. Get going. Welcome to the new, brand new, International Center at the UC Davis campus. This is my second time here in this pretty amazing building. And you're here for a focus group discussion on cell phones today. And my name is Susan Berman. I'm an independent researcher. I have my own research firm called Impact Research, about 30 years old so far. And I was hired to get feedback about the most important attributes that drive you to buy a new cell phone. The company wants to find out what features they should include in the cell phone to make it the most attractive of the newest and hottest cell phones on the market. So, it's your time to be creative and to reflect on what you have now and to be creative about the future. Here are the typical parts and the sequence they usually follow. One, prepare the room ahead of time and test all technology. And, I usually bring two backup cassette recorders in case one doesn't work. Two, greet the participants as they arrive and make them feel comfortable. Three, introductory remarks about the focus group and what they can expect. This includes rules of conduct, confidentiality, how long the focus group will take, and thank yous. This clip will give you an idea of how introductory remarks should sound. First, I'm going to discuss some of the rules of a focus group. How many have ever done a focus group before? Yeah. Good. So it's just basically a discussion group. We want you to all talk freely speak your mind. Just don't do it all at the same time so that we can hear each one of you, you're all important. We want to, you know there is no right or wrong answers. So we don't have anything programmed at all, as to what we want to hear necessarily, just some of the topics. But feel free to go off in whatever direction you want. And we want to hear from everybody because we respect that you all have important opinions. The consent form you signed allows us to use audio and video recording. And we will not be including any of your identifying factors in the focus group report. Just wanted to let you know that. And the other video or whatever is for instructional purposes only. The group should last no longer than 90 minutes. And if you can just refrain from leaving the room, I think we've got all that business taken care of beforehand. And make sure to turn off that lovely cell phone that I saw you signaling when we were recruiting here on campus. Just so it doesn't ring or interrupt the group. And if you all have your table tents facing me so I can call you by name. Let's move on to the next parts. Four, introduction of participants and an icebreaker. Five, then you get into the questions in your moderator guide to saturate the topics. Six, concluding remarks and thanks. Seven, answering any questions participants may have. We will see the video clips of these parts further on. Here are a few pointers of a practical nature to keep in mind regarding your focus group. These range from setting up the interview all the way to thanking the respondent. Be flexible during the interview or focus group so that the respondent can speak naturally. Plan to take notes in the margin of your moderator guide or on a separate piece of paper so you can track which questions were answered. I usually check these off as I go. You might want to paraphrase what respondents say during the focus group so everyone can hear and absorb what the participants said. That gives a speaker a chance to refine what was said if you didn't get their point. There are three categories of questions you will be asking during the focus group. These are engagement questions, exploration questions, and exit questions. The engagement questions introduce participants to the topic of discussion and help them get comfortable discussing it. Here's an example of an engagement question based on our business case scenario. When I recruited you, you all stated that you bought a cell phone that was sort of a high-end cell phone within the last couple of years. If we can go around the room and just tell me what cell phone brand you have, and the model, and what features you like about your cell phone? The next type is exploration questions. These get to the meat of the discussion by probing deeper to explore the topic or an interesting point made by one of the focus group participants. We've referenced probes and follow up questions. These both fall into the category of exploration questions. Watch this clip where I use an exploration question. Here's an example regarding a focus group on our business case scenario. The initial engagement question asked, "What features of the cell phone most influence their buying decision?" Suppose the discussion becomes animated when they start discussing the way the technology has changed their social interactions. An exploration question would be, "Several of you have mentioned the social aspect of phones. How do you think the influence of cell phones has helped or hindered your social interactions?" Because in some countries in Asia, like in the Philippines you have to, it cost more if you send a message to a different carrier, if that person has a different carrier than you do, so she had a phone that, like three SIM cards. So yeah. And you just switch out the SIM card, right? No, you just keep it in there. Yeah. They have, like, two slots already. I mean, it's convenient but I can live without it, honestly. It's not that hard to remove it and just put it in. The next type is exit questions. An exit question is used to check to see if anything was missed in the discussion. Suppose, you've been discussing the features your focus group participants value most in a cell phone. You sense that you have saturated the topic and it's time to move on to another topic. You've asked all the questions you had in the moderator guide. That's when you'd wrap up that topic with an exit question such as, "Are there any other features we've missed?" Generally speaking, those are the three types of questions for a focus group. The three E's: engagement, exploration, and exit. That's where we'll you will end this lesson. By now, you should be able to describe the flow of a focus group and explain three categories of questions to use, recalling the examples drawn from the focus group on our business case scenario. We'll go deeper into that focus group experience in our next lesson.
