Matthews, B. and Ross, L. (2010) Research methods: a practical guide for the social sciences. Harlow: Longman, Pearson Education. Extract pp.234-251.
This chapter was very helpful when I was deciding between using individual interviews or focus groups for my project. It provided a very clear definition and purpose of focus groups that made it clear to me that it will be beneficial to use it as a research method. .
It defined focus group as follow:
“Essentially, a focus group is a qualitative data collection method which is an adaptation of the interview technique. The change is that the focus group (as the name implies) departs from the one-to-one interview and becomes a group interview. ” (p.235)
Focus group
A data collection method that usually:
- brings together a group of between 5 and 13 people;
- who have something in common, which is connected to the research topic;
- to take part in a discussion on that topic, which is facilitated by the researcher.” (p.235)
In my project, I will not have many people in my group. It is a small-scale local project, and the participants are my team colleagues. We are a small team, and I am planning to involve as many librarians as possible in the group, but it may be that there are only a few of us available at the time I carry out the focus group. In general, we have only two full-time and three part-time librarians, with one of us working in term time only. However, these are going to be people that we have a lot of things in common and their opinion will be crucial for continuing my research after finishing the PgCert course.
What also convinced me that a focus group is suitable for what I am planning to do, was the following:
“Focus groups are an appropriate method of data collection to use when the researcher is interested in gathering qualitative data about people’s experiences, ideas and understandings.” (p.236)
This is exactly what I need for my research project. I want my colleagues’ opinions on what we do to support our students in learning about resources and how we can improve it. I think in our day-to-day work we do not have time to share our experience as well as I think we should. I work with amazing and experienced librarians, and their input will help us build a better learning environment for our students. Focus group will give us time to meet and discuss things in a bit more formal way and that can help us to generate new ideas and plan improvements to our teaching together.
This chapter explains a number of different ways of how focus groups are used. This convinced me further that this is going to be a useful method to use in my research project. I am most interested in my focus group to be a consultation (to find out what my colleagues think about my research), an exploration (to generate ideas for sessions, student support in my area of research) and a ‘checking back’ tool (as a follow up to the questionnaires that I am also planning to use).
This chapter had also helped me with planning the focus group. It gives advice on creating a topic guide (a set of questions, key points or prompts) that helps to ensure that the discussion stays focused on the research topic. That is something that I plan to do for my focus group.