Focus Group Research (Statistical Associates Blue Book Series 45)

A graduate level introduction to and illustrated tutorial on focus group research.

New title in 2014:

A thorough discussion of focus group research implementation, including the roles of the facilitator and assistant facilitator, developing an implementation timeline, developing a focus group script, organizing the session itself, analysis of results, and much more.
Explains how to use Microsoft Access to archive focus group results and analyze them with SQL queries.
Appendices provide sample letters of consent and of confirmation, and a focus group contact form.
Distinguishes focus group research and focused group interviewing.

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Below is the unformatted table of contents.

FOCUS GROUP RESEARCH
Table of Contents 3
Overview 5
Key concepts and terms 6
History 6
Focus group research vs. focused interviewing of groups 7
The focus group facilitator 8
Participant selection 8
Focus group size and number of sessions 9
Focus group membership 10
The consent form 10
Organizing the focus group 11
Planning 11
Timeline 12
Recording 13
Forming a session script 14
Overview 14
The opening section 14
The question section 16
The ending section 17
Role of the facilitator 17
Role of the assistant facilitator 20
Coding and reporting focus group results 20
Reporting and analysis 20
Coding 21
Example of coding with Access, a relational database 22
Coding software 27
Assumptions 30
Sources of bias are numerous 30
The focus group as action research 30
Frequently asked questions 31
When is the focus group approach not recommended? 31
Is focus group research accepted by all qualitative researchers? 32
What is a "mutational question"? 32
What is the "graphic reinstatement" technique? 33
What is the relation of focus group research to social media? 33
What is FocusVision? 34
What is focusgroups.com? 34
Appendix A: Sample focus group consent letter 35
Appendix B: Sample focus group confirmation letter 36
Appendix C: Sample focus group contact form 38
Bibliography 38
Pagecount: 43