Focus groups
Focus groups bring together a small group of people (generally about 8) to take part in a facilitated discussion on a particular issue. Usually participants will have things in common to help them feel more relaxed, for example, they may be the same gender, age, socio-demographic or professional group. For any project several groups are usually run so that a cross-section of people has been involved. It is especially important that representatives of the different types of people who might be affected by the subject are included.
Focus groups enable understanding of the range of potential responses to specific policies and programmes. As with in-depth interviews, a loose topic guide ensures the researcher covers the topics of interest to the project but allows people to explain things in their own way. This is a useful technique for generating ideas and exploring the breadth of views on a topic but the method can not measure the prevalence of a view, for that a quantitative survey is required.
Focus groups can be reconvened to enable participants to consider information and reflect on their views. They can also be used in conjunction with other techniques to provide a broader evidence base and are often the cornerstone of other techniques, such as deliberative research, dialogue events and surveys.
We audio record the discussions and analyse them using social research analysis techniques drawing out the themes relevant to the project objectives. This ensures that no data is lost and that our findings are as robust and actionable as possible.
Some examples of our work that has included focus group research are:
- Public Perceptions of Physics: Institute Of Physics
- Public Attitudes to Science 2008: Research Councils UK and the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (conducted in partnership with TNS)
- Formative Evaluation of the Large Hadron Collider Communication Project
- Public Attitudes to Stem Cell Research – establishing the UK stem cell bank
- Evaluation of Engineering a Better World