PHYSICS 102 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Focus Group, Sound Bite
Document Summary
Introduction examine some methodological issues of using and analysing focus groups for social science research. The use of focus groups in social science research. Focus groups originated in sociology, primarily used by market researchers in recent years significant lack of literature on the analysis of the conversational processes and structures involved in them. There would seem to be considerable potential for developing new and better methods of analysing focus group data". Definitions of focus group and consequences for analysis. Some researchers, characterize focus groups as group interviews: focus groups are indepth group interviews employing relatively homogenous groups to provide information around topics specified by the researchers". Define them as a group discussion: a carefully planned discussion designed to obtain perceptions on a defined environment" - show a tension between participant-researcher interaction and interaction between participants. Focus groups explicitly use group interaction as part of the method".
