Welcome back. In qualitative research, your goal is to ensure topic saturation by using probes after your general question. I want you to watch a short video that shows a great demonstration of the use of probes to get to topic saturation. The title of the video is Focus Group Research 2007: Barbecue Sauce. As you watch it, pay attention to how they move around from general questions to probes to ensure topic saturation. I will give you my commentary after you watch the video, and after this lesson, you will be able to recall how to apply effective probing techniques to saturate a topic. So let's get started. The moderator first asks the group what they think about the flip top. One member of the group emphasizes that the flip top is more convenient and saves him from using other utensils when he's barbecuing. The moderator then asks how many feel the same way. All seven participants raise their hand. This is a way of getting everybody to participate in the group discussion. The moderator then transitions from the savings topic into cost savings by asking the group if using the bottle could be a way to save money. She asks for a count again and all agree. She also expands on the ease of use concept when comparing the flip top to a twist off top. She took another count to find out how many agreed that the flip top was easier. Without asking to explain why, one woman provided backup with her example of how using a twist top is hard when your hands are greasy. After, the moderator gives each participant a bottle with a flip top and one with a twist top to sample onto a paper plate. She asks which one they prefer. She asks again for a count and all agree. At 2 minutes and 45 seconds into the video, the moderator probes further by asking the group why the prefer the flip top. One person responds with less mess. The moderator responds with an echo technique, less mess, okay. The next woman goes into a longer explanation about her process and not dousing the chicken. The moderator then summarize, more control, okay. Others agree, and the moderator says out loud others feel the same. This serves the purpose of making sure that all important input gets included in the transcription. At three minutes and ten seconds, she asks the group so what do the rest of you think about the lip? Does it help? In this case, I think she should have just asked what she thought about the lip without asking if it helped. This is what I call a bit of a leading question. At 3 minutes and 14 seconds, she may have realized this when she asked, what does it do? That is much more general. At 3 minutes and 41 second, she asks if the brand would influence whether or not they would buy the flip top. Then she moves into pricing, asking how much more value the flip top adds to the product. She asked whether people would pay from 10 to 25 cents more for a flip top. And it gets a majority of the participants, indicating that they would pay more. So this part of the focus group topic on the flip top was saturated. They covered ease, they covered convenience, and they covered the prices of the flip top. That video example demonstrates getting to topic saturation using probes. You reach topic saturation when you have attained additional new information and when further information is no longer available to get insight about the product or project. The goal of the focus group is to get multiple viewpoints on a given topic. When the moderator no longer has a followup question with the probe, the topic is usually saturated. Let me give you an example of a time I achieved topic saturation. I was once interviewing a very shy patient who had an operation to fix her scoliosis. She had many important testimonial type comments that could be used for advertising campaigns. So I wanted to get her own words. We were in a natural casual environment, a perfect place to conduct the interview. I asked her how did you feel about having scoliosis? She said, it was awful. Kids always made fun on me, and I was in pain. I then asked, what did you hope for to make things better? She said, I wish I could have had an operation, but in India, having scars is frowned on. So I asked, why is it frowned on? She said, well, I'm a woman and having scars makes you unmarriageable. So I asked, what made it worthwhile to have the operation? She said, well, I visited with a number of doctors, patients who told me how much better they felt physically and mentally after they had the operation. I finally decided the scars are worth my well-being. And then I asked, well, how did things turn out? She said, I gained two inches from the surgery, and I'm engaged to be married. The surgery was totally worth it. So as you can see in this example, as the conversation naturally progressed, the patient gave me more and more detail as a result of my probing. Soon, there was nothing more remaining that added value to this particular topic, and the subject came to a natural close. Watching this video and analyzing it provided useful learning from another's experience. I encourage you to find other good examples of qualitative research to review. You can use the best practices we applied to do your own analysis and learn from others' experience.
