Focus Groups - Science topic

I am aiming to apply for a PhD with the following topic: Youth Awareness and Engagement with Degrowth Principles in Central and Eastern Europe – An Investigation of Climate Anxiety, Consumer Behaviour, Stakeholder Influence and Communication Strategies in Shaping Attitudes and Actions towards Degrowth

I have started to investigate research gaps and found that hardly any researches are dealing with the above topic, targeting CEE and youth. Do you find the topic novel, would you have any recommendations? I am aiming to do focus groups in related countries (ie Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria), quantitative research among youth upon focus group initiatives and a stakeholder mapping among NGOs, policy-makers, educational bodies, influencers to understand their strategies and narratives and their impact on youth in CEE. Thank you for your recommendations. Kind regards, Katalin

Could you please provide me an article in HR and OB where focus group interview has been conducted.

.1 Explain the benefits of collecting data using focus groups in research (5).

1. 2 Discuss participant and non-participant observation in research (25).

1. 3 Discuss why a questionnaire is instrumental in collecting data (15).

1.4 References (5). TOTAL 50 MARK

Please use references from 2023 to 2024

Myself and colleagues have conducted 3 focus groups of international professionals to review a new assessment tool in healthcare. One of us made detailed notes throughout the focus groups and then the recordings were listened afterwards and further notes were made.

These notes were then used to inform the next phase of review of the tool and we made many changes based on the focus groups feedback. Once completed, the tool was then sent back to the participants for member checking/review.

Originally we were going to summarise our changes to the tool and use quotes from the focus groups to support the changed areas or additions to the assessment tool.

The question is, should we also analyse the focus group transcripts for qualitative themes? Or is what we have done sufficient?

Is anyone using AI platforms to code interview and focus group narratives? If yes, which one are you using? Pros and cons?

Qualitative research is a powerful tool in the social sciences, humanities, education and other disciplines. Unlike quantitative research which focuses on numbers and statistical analysis, qualitative research seeks to understand the deeper meanings, experiences and perspectives of individuals and groups. It provides rich, detailed insights that help researchers gain a holistic understanding of complex phenomena. This article explores the best practices for conducting qualitative research. These practices guide you in designing, collecting, analyzing and presenting qualitative data in a way that ensures rigor, reliability and ethical integrity.

Qualitative research is a method of inquiry that focuses on exploring phenomena from a subjective, in-depth perspective. It is often used to investigate complex social, cultural, psychological or behavioral issues that cannot be easily quantified. Unlike quantitative research which collects numerical data and uses statistical methods to test hypotheses, qualitative research deals with non-numerical data such as interviews, focus groups, observations and textual analysis.

Characteristics of Qualitative Research

Qualitative research is often used to explore new areas of study where little prior knowledge exists. It emphasizes understanding the context in which the research occurs, such as the cultural, social or historical backdrop. Qualitative research design is flexible as it allows researchers to adapt their approach as they collect and analyze data. It also focuses on personal experiences, meanings and interpretations. Common qualitative research methods include; interviews (structured, semi-structured, or unstructured), focus groups, observations, case studies, ethnography, content analysis and narrative analysis.

Best Practices in Qualitative Research

When designing and conducting qualitative studies, you need to consider the following key practices to ensure the quality and rigor of your qualitative research.

· Clear research objectives; before beginning any qualitative study, it is crucial to clearly define the research objectives. These objectives should address the research question or problem that you aim to explore. A focused and well-defined research question will guide the design, data collection and analysis stages of the research. Your research question should be open-ended and exploratory to allow for detailed responses.

For example: Instead of asking, "How many people use social media?" a qualitative question would be, "How do individuals experience social media use in their daily lives?"

Read more at: https://blog.hamnicwritingservices.com/blog-details/qualitative-research-best-practices

Hello, I am a novice researcher and I would like to do a qualitative study exploring barriers and facilitators. I had planned to use the theoretical. Domain framework consisting of 14 domains to guide to my questions. But due to the exploratory nature of qualitative research, I was going to use a funnel system going from broad to more specific questions related to my framework. However, I am now concerned that there would be too many questions in my focus group. Does anybody know what is the upper limit of questions within a focus group or how could I get around this issue. Thanks. Jim.

"I recently heard some comments from executives working in marketing agencies, where they praised the merits of focus groups whose participants were all generated by artificial intelligence. They spoke about synthetic personas and synthetic groups, presenting it as the future of advertising pre-testing. Have you come across any research on these practices? Or any critical work on such claims?"

I am looking into conducting some qualitative fieldwork as part of my research, which is something new to me. As such, I wanted to ask the ResearchGate community what they perceive or have experienced to be the strengths and weaknesses of different qualitative approaches for research in the Social Sciences. Approaches or methods I'm considering include focus groups, semi-structured interviews, and ethnographic approaches, but I'd also be happy to hear about approaches beyond these three.

Thanks in advance!

I am conducting pilot tests with the three groups that I am going to conduct a focus group with later (adolescents, parents and coaches).

In addition to refining the questions and identifying possible errors and improvements prior to the focus groups, can I use the extracted results for later inclusion in the TA?

Where are focus groups written up in an academic article when not a part of the primary research, indeed helped to develop the question set used with participants in the primary research?

In terms of outcomes that makes the focus group work exactly as contributions from the Literature Review. I am tempted to include the focus group write-ups there. It is logical, but I've never seen such a thing. Is the better alternative, therefore, to include reporting the primary research as having multiple stages and including the focus groups there?

Suppose X is a variable and it has 4 sub construct/ dimensions and a researcher adds two constructs based on literature that hold valid in current research. Is it one of the ways to proceed with EFA and CFA to establish the validity and reliability of variable in the current context without conducting interviews and focus groups, which is a part of scale development? But here only dimension is added.

I want to enhance user experience in business-to-business (B2B) interactions. While I am familiar with qualitative user research methods like interviews and focus groups, I find that these may not always be entirely applicable to B2B contexts due to the complexity and diversity of roles involved, such as operators, IT providers, producers, and financial providers.

When designing a product that needs to cater to a broad range of businesses and roles, rather than specific user personas within a single business type, how to adjust or combine research methods?

I am carrying out a research project in which I am conducting focus groups with older men and women to study the musical stereotypes learned in traditional Spanish oral music groups, but I am faced with generational and gender barriers. How do you think the dynamics of this type of tool could be approached in a different way? For example, launching them and having them start talking, or approaching them by thematic blocks and with structured questions?

I am studying for a Msc in Psychology and my project is based on the adjustments made by those skilled workers when living in the uk. I have sent emails to organisations with no response. Is there another way I can invite participants?

Dear researcher friends,

Before the scale adaptation study, I will conduct a focus group interviews to reveal whether the structure presented in the existing scale is confirmed or not and to discover new structures, if any. But what I'm undecided about is whether I should determine themes by doing content analysis. What good will it do if I do this? Should I write new items for the existing scale based on a new sub-theme? Or, without content analysis, would it be enough for me to give some examples from the discourses in the focus group interview, add new items, or state that the existing structure is confirmed?

Notes: This research will be part of a doctoral thesis.

Please help me :)

The topic of research is "The role of social class in developing branding or marketing strategies". I am planning to interview 3 groups, 3 to 4 participants in each group and sample size of 5 to 8 relevant questions. I need some tips and advices for recording and analysis.

Yes, we can analyze the qualitative tools manually by figure out appropriate themes, and after that, we can use coding. I want to know if there is any online tool available for analyzing the focus group interview.

Methods: interviews w teachers, focus groups, observation) Leaning towards social constructivist, but was told I should probably broaden my search. Help!

Hi everyone,

I am working on studying the perspectives towards persons with disabilities among a small sample of secondary students (n=12). I have come across a very interesting questionnaire called the "New Scale to Assess Attitudes and Perspectives Toward Persons With Disabilities". However, I have concerns about the meaningfulness of administering the questionnaire to such a small sample size. I am considering transforming the questionnaire's questions into discussion items for a focus group. However, I am unsure if this approach is methodologically appropriate."

I collected the data using interviews and validated it using focus groups. I need to do a thematic analysis to analyse the data and answer the research questions. Should I proceed inductively or ductively? What is the name of the appropriate method, because interviewing cannot be repeated until saturation is reached

It is suggested that I use the intercoder verification in a research where I am the only coder, and whose objective is to verify the effect of the modification of the atmosphere of discussion on the topics discussed in a discussion group.

I believe it is useful to use test-retest to assess the reliability of my analyses (intracoder check), but I am not convinced of the relevance of using other coders to assess the codes assigned during my thematic analysis. If the objective of a research is to analyze the variations induced by the modification of a variable during almost similar discussion groups, using the same analyst, the same discussion plan and the same codebook, do you think it is necessary to check the agreement between coders?

ps.I work in a "codebook" or "template analysis" technique (as described in Braun and Clarke's (2022).

focus group 8 participants qualitative thematic analysis

I am currently studying cross-sectional research design. I have found that these studies are often associated with surveys and structured interviews but can also include other methods such as structured observation, content analysis, official statistics, and diaries (Bryman, 2016). I wonder if the focus group technique can be used in a cross-sectional research design and in what situations it could be classified as such.

Could you help me with literature or examples to resolve this question?

Hello,

I am working on completing my capstone and am working on analyzing my data now. I used Nvivo but I don't know if I used it correctly. I am not entirely sure what I am looking for. I have used individual interviews and I completed a focus group. The individual interview had 7 questions (all open-ended) and the focus group discussion had 4 questions (also open-ended).

I am stuck on the best approach to identify themes and codes.

Any feedback helps!

Thanks so much!

The process of coding rich data is individual, yet needs to be documented as to how it was done. I find myself going from basic codes, to top level code both in NVIVO and on paper. I find memos helpful to bring together top codes into themes. Any written material, I date, photograph and upload to NVIVO. I then develop a memo, based on my 'field notes'. This process is repeated many times. Working with focus groups of distinct races/ethnicities and age groups, I find copying the memos for each major group to word and printing them that I am able to compare themes. Overarching themes emerge, as well. Although my coauthors can arrive at similar codes, the themes are often interpreted differently. At this point are we talking about two lenses and two different articles? Your experiences are welcome!

We need to do a focal group with some students in order to know their percepcions about their executives functions. Thus, we need some advice about the method to validate the questions that we are going to ask.

What are the future research hotspots of battery management? At present, I am engaged in the research of battery state estimation, and I want to expand the research content. I can see that some research groups focus on fault diagnosis, the research of battery internal short circuit, and some focus on the energy management of the whole vehicle. In addition, there are battery balance, thermal management and other directions.

My main research instrument is focus group discussion. However, a few participants are not available to join the session together.

Is it okay to ask them filling in an open-ended survey individually which the questions are all from the focus group protocol?

Thank you in advance.

Many of the interview software packages, like Dragon Speak, will record and transcribe the interview and seem to work all right with a one-on-one interviews but seem to break down when there is a focus group with multiple speakers.

Does anyone have any suggestions on software that will work well with recording and transcribing a focus group?

I am finding it hard to categorise my current research study as there are 4 participants and I am using an arts-based method, so I can't decide which method it is?

Kind request to receive some templates on interviews, surveys, questionnaires for the fieldwork related to the Impact of land-use changes on soil erosion intensity?

We are planning to use standard methodologies for the assessment of Soil erosion on the field. In addition to that, we will use some photo materials (repeat photography), google maps, google earth...

We are looking for some good examples you implemented earlier for collecting data using interview techniques, questioners, working with Focus Groups.

It is not a problem to include interested parties to be with our team one of the authors, being interested to participate in the preparation of the interview techniques, questioners, working with Focus Groups (online ZOOM with us); including the analysis of the received inputs.

Looking forward to your reply,

Dr. Sc. Velibor SPALEVIC

1, Novaka Miloseva, 81000 Podgorica, Montenegro

Mobile/Viber/WhatsApp: +382 67 201 222

E-mail: velibor.spalevic@gmail.com

If a study has received ethical approval on the basis that it will employ indepth interviews and during the course of the implementation, we find that a focus group would be more practical given the homogeniety of the participants and the time constraints of waiting for each respondent to agree for an interview. Can the research team switch to conducting a focu group without gaining re-approval from the Ethics board again? I understand that it is ideal that re-approval be taken, but can some discretions be practised by the researchers to switch without involving ethics committee again, provided that the FGDs will be conductd follwing all ethical principles?

Thank you

We have organised three focus groups with homogenous sample. Each group consisted of maximum 4-5 people (in total for three groups 13 people). After the third group, we consider to stop as we received overall the same results in all three groups.

Should we be concerned for the total number of participants or for the number of focus groups?

I mostly find references for the number of focus groups and the number of people within a group, but not for the total number.

To add here, that the participants were not an easily accessible population, this was the reason of small focus groups.

Thank you!

Any research on such topic or ideas shared will be appreciated.

I am curious to hear from people who have done online focus groups. What worked best, and what didn't work as well?

Hello there,

I am preparing focus groups with health professionals.

The content in general is not going to touch on any sensitive topics.

However, please state your opinion on how to react if someone reports that he/she was a target of bullying, harassments, or was verbally abused by line manager/supervisor/co-worker etc...

What can I should I do if something like that is reported?

Should I suggest contacting occupational psychologist? Talking to someone else from the supervision/management?

In general what guidance could I use to help those people who reveal content suggesting they have suffered at work and what is my role as a moderator for that?

Please share your experience and perhaps some examples from literature.

Many thanks in advance

Witold

Hi everyone!

I'm looking for tips and tricks for efficient qualitative data coding in collaboration. We, two researchers, have data from about 8 focus groups and 3 interviews, 60-80 minutes each. We talked about what respondents do to make effective use of executive functions to solve a difficult problem or pursue a complex task. E.g.: what do you do to keep your focus when you’re studying a difficult topic for you thesis? Our goal is to make a list of 'all' possible strategies to use executive functions through coding, using Atlas.ti. So, we do have kind of a framework which consists of every executive function, but every EF can be considered as a category for which we do not have specific codes yet: these codes for ‘EF-strategies’ will emerge from the data. We aim to code in tandem or parallel. How to do this efficiently? I wonder for example: what if I'm a lumper and my partner is a splitter, while we work in the same project (Atlas.ti). We would then definitely use different codes. How can we manage this in an efficient manner? Any tips or literature are highly appreciated!

I selected 30 respondents for focus group interview. Now I wish to know reliability of the raters ( Respondents). Please suggest me qualitative and quantitative methods for testing reliability of respondents of focus group interview.

I have planned to do a qualitative reaserch based on health belief model on betal chewing using focus groups. I have collected few data. In the ibnterpretationj how am I to analyse this. My plan was to get constructs of the theory as themes and find matching codes from the transcripts. Is that deductive apparoch or am I wrong?

Hi all,

Due to time constraints, My team had to shelve our plans to publish the protocol for systematic review and focus groups that are currently going on (current status: data analysis completed for review and data collection phase completed for the focus group ). Does any journal accept a protocol paper on on-going studies or studies that are on its last phase? If yes, which journals accepts it?

Domain : Health psycology & Occupational health and safety

I am looking for methods to analyze participants perception on future outcomes collected through a survey followed by qualitative data collected through focus groups. How do I combine data from these two sources and conduct a mixed methodology (Qualitative + Quantitative)? Is there any other better approach than the mixed methodology?

Thank you in advance for reading my inquiry.

Dear all,

I am in the process of developing an energy behaviour maturity model for organisations in my PhD. So far, I have conducted expert interviews and focus groups on developing factors and maturity level descriptions (for 5 maturity levels against the factors). The structure of the findings so far is given below.

As the final step, I am going to develop the tool further as an assessment tool. Therefore, I am seeking ways of assigning weights for each main factor and sub-factor (Reason: The main factors/subfactors identified seem to have different impact levels for the energy behaviour maturity. Therefore, if I can assign weights that can be reflected in the results of the maturity assessments conduct using this model in the future)

Note: There are no subfactors for some of the main factors. Altogether, under the 3 Areas, 15 main factors and 5 subfactors are available. If required, the 3 areas can also be assigned with weights.

I would be grateful if you could provide your thoughts on this matter.

Hi friends! Who knows taxi drivers? (traditional cab drivers, not Uber of Lyft). Our team is recruiting taxi drivers to participate in focus groups about technological changes in driving jobs and the future impact of autonomous vehicles on workforce. Whoever successfully particpated in the focus group can receive a $50 gift card. More information can be found at: <iframe src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/post.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2FWEAVENSF%2Fposts%2F180149620718317&show_text=true&width=500" width="500" height="737" style="border:none;overflow:hidden" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="true" allow="autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; picture-in-picture; web-share"></iframe>

In the literature, why has attribute (or monetary attribute) non-attendance been over-researched, although important attributes have always been included in the labeled discrete choice experiments after conducting focus groups, observations, and discussions with the decision-makers? However, why don’t we also shift our attention to alternatives’ non-attendance, a paradigm shift, specifically in a labeled discrete choice experiment with more alternatives, assumedly eight to nine alternatives, including none-of-these alternative, and then check convergent validity of respondents’ preferences and WTP values?

I agree that if some respondents don’t attend (or ignore) some attributes (or even a monetary attribute) even after being very well pre-tested and eventually included in a choice card, then in a similar way, it is also logical that respondents may also ignore (or don’t attend) some competing alternatives, if their number is higher, as I said eight to nine or probably less attractive for some respondents! Please remember, I am not talking about comparing small (say 5 alternatives) and large choice cards (say 8-9 alternatives) using a labeled discrete choice experiment.

Thanks

Musharaf A. Talpur

I am working on my PhD research proposal, which is an exploratory design. Due to the insufficient existing study on the related issue, I plan to develop hypotheses and concepts through grounded theory (from both academic & non-academic resources, including magazines and articles from notable media) to serve as the guideline for the focus group. While the transcript of the focus group will then be analysed through thematic analysis to confirm the hypotheses built from the grounded theory.

Does this appear to be appropriate?

I am designing a new project and want to use participatory methods with children. I want the children to consider the questions and ask them in focus groups with other children. I know of a number of research projects that have carried this out successfully with young people (11+) but I am wanting to carry this project out with children between the ages of 5-11 yrs. Can anyone recommend any research where this has been attempted and discussed?

I have conducted one focus group and one interview where the same questions were asked. Could I analyse both data sets together using thematic analysis?

Dear researchers

I hope that all is well with you

I am a PhD qualitative novice researcher

I have to interview, focus group, journal tools and demographics questionnaire (asking about gender, age, language level, motivation, anxiety)

My aim of having a focus group is to triangulate the findings with the interview.

I am intended to analyse my data by using thematic analyses for each individual and then classifying them based on different gender, age, motivation, and so on

As one of my research aims is to compare participants’ experiences with using data-driven learning in online classrooms, with different age, gender, motivation, and learners’ proficiency.

However, I am confused with some issues in collecting and analyse focus group data which are as the following:

What is the most suitable way of conducting and analyse the focus group?

Should I conduct a homogenous focus group ( same age, gender, motivation, learners proficiency)?

I am thinking about this but I am not sure that I will find the participants who all share the same characteristics

Or

Should I conduct a heterogeneous focus group ( different age, gender, motivation, learners’ proficiency)?

Regarding the analysis

I am thinking if I conduct a homogenous focus group, I will analyse each group separately and compare between them, however as I mentioned before I am not sure that I will be able to specify group sharing all same characteristics ( age, gender, motivation, learners’ proficiency),

On the other hand, If I conduct a heterogeneous focus group, I am confused about how can I analyse them regarding different participants’ characteristics

Also, I read about some arguments about analysis focus group data as individuals or as groups, but I am not sure how can I decide each one of them

Thanks in advance

Ok ,so here is another question about qualitative studies. In my dissertation IRB I included the following:

My question is, if the interns and mentors do not want to do all the items listed above, is it okay to allow them to only participate in focus groups. If they don't want to do focus groups with other mentors/interns would it be okay to just have interviews with mentor/interns that work together (in pairs). I think some of the mentors are hesitant to participate with others (not sure why exactly other than possibly the comfort level). Do you think this strays too far even if it can help answer my research questions? Should I turn in an amended IRB? I know I will have to rewrite parts of my chapter 3 but I have heard/understand things like this happen in qualitative studies and sometimes you get a completely different set of data than you originally planned for because of what you learn/gain throughout the study. I love the idea of qualitative studies and learning from participants, but I struggle because sometimes I think too much in black/white pictures. I am a "rule follower" of sorts.

Thanks everyone!

although they are not identical, i donot catch the point. please explain to me.

best regards,

saw

Does anyone have suggestions on software that has been particularly helpful in transcribing and analyzing data recorded during focus groups? We have some money from a grant that can be used to purchase licenses. Any insight would be helpful. Thank you.

Looking for an online focus group software that has mixed-method capabilities. So in addition to having video/audio capabilities for discussion, would like to be able to deploy questions to participants and have the data in an identifiable format after the focus group. Any suggestions?

I am looking for recommendations for good resources or guidelines for developing surveys specifically focused on targeting user's opinions or a needs-analysis in the context of engineering design of new technology?

As we are all aware, we are moving away from direct person to person meetings towards online communications, conferences, etc.

Do you think there are some ethical considerations to be acknowledged when running focus groups online (video conferencing) contrary to more 'traditional' settings - meeting at one table etc.

Wonder if the two situations (contexts) differ in anyway in terms of running research and ethics...

Please share your opinions and ideas, any of them would be appreciated.

Many thanks

I am thinking to build a mobile application that may help to increase the paper's citations of any author using different techniques such as:

Could you please add more ideas that may help to improve this application?

There are different ways of evaluating the effectiveness of a training program on health education; one being pre and post asssessment, qualitative evaluation via focus groups or a mixed method analysis?

Are there other means of evaluating the effectiveness?

Do you list all questions you asked in the journal article or you just mention that you use focus group interview as a research method? Thank you very much!

I have completed a study investigating the influence of feedback provided to junior doctors on their development of competence in performing a specific procedural skill in both workplace and simulation based assessment. Qualitative data was collected via surveys and a focus group. There were four themes that I found in my analysis of the data with one of the themes being feedback itself. I have been told that a theme cannot be the same as your topic under investigation so now am stuck trying to find another descriptor for 'feedback'. Any thoughts on a theme and the topic sharing the same name or on another word to describe feedback.

Hello,

I am conducting a research degree and for my ethics I am required to provide an sample size for participants.

In one study I will look at the reliability of a screening tool(s) where two (potentially groups) of raters watch a performer conduct an action and give it a score.

I therefore need to work out how many raters I need and how many participants I need.

For example, it will be easier to get more participants rather than raters, so could I have say 100 participants and 2 raters, as this would give more data points than 10 raters and 10

participants?

However, the issue is…I do not know what screens I will be using as of yet, as these screens will be decided as part of the research (a focus group with experts). Therefore, I do not know if the scoring system on one screen might be 0-10, and on another screen it might be 0-3. I believe that this might affect any calculation?

Any advice on where to start would be great.

What do you think, is it legit to campare focus groups that were conducted online with focus groups conducted "face-to-face"? Both online and face-to-face focus groups were held by same moderator using the same guidline (or a similar set of questions), all groups were transcribed vebatim and then categorized by means of a "narration analysis". Additional "field notes" for non-verbal sings were taken. However, I do have some concers, because face-to-face focus groups allowed more insights into non-verbal communication and interactions of participants, compared to online FGs. Thank you for your answers.

Running a new group for those diagnosed with both ADHD and ASD as adults. How can I evaluate the impact of the group and perhaps compare to the ASD only and ADHD only only groups?

Hi

I'm doing research to explore students perceptions on why they choose to or not to pursue a career in fluroscopy

Trying to find out external and internal factors. However i am not sure how to conduct the research, my approach is ground theory

I was going do questionaires first then focus group interviews

I hope you can give me some insight

Thank you

Hello: Can you recommend any literature regarding discussion groups and focus groups held online? I am interested in the methodological and ethical aspects and the discussion of the limits and possibilities of these. Thank you very much.

In Qualitative research how many focus groups we can add? For example one focus group comprise of age 30 to 40 and 5 volunteer members, other group; age 40 to 50 and 5 members, last group; age 50 to 60 and 5 member. can we increase members in one group or it should be total 10 to 12 all collectively?

I am currently working on my doctoral research proposal. I am attempting to further justify using interviews versus focus groups to conduct qualitative research about a topic that is sensitive in nature. I would appreciate any literature or experiences regarding this choice. Thank you kindly!

For my Bachelor thesis, I am aiming to research how the quality of life is perceived by village residents as well as their unfulfilled needs in this living environment.

Hence, they all live in the same area, but to get a response that hopefully reflects the response of a village as a whole, I want all possible demographics covered by the attendees; increasing reliability of their shared answers.

Any advice on how to approach this best?

Students/participants who always use measurement or numbers in understanding all phenomena may require more effort in convincing them about the importance and processes of qualitative research.

My name is John Kirst and I am a doctoral learner at Grand Canyon University (GCU). I am humbly requesting your help in locating a home healthcare agency willing to be a part of a study.

My proposed study titled Home Healthcare Workers’ Utilization of Mobile Technology is at the proposal stage currently being reviewed. The healthcare organization who originally agreed to be a part of the study decided to not participate. In order to complete my study, I need to recruit another home healthcare organization.

The study is a qualitative case study consisting a survey, focus group and individual interviews. If approved by GCU and the home healthcare agency, the survey can either be manual or through Survey Monkey. The focus group and individual interviews can be completed either in person or through a video conference software such as Zoom. Although I am a novice researcher, I will work on minimizing the home healthcare companies time and people involvement.

If you have or know of a home healthcare agency willing to participate in the study, please let me know. I can be reached at jkirst1121@live.com or (903) 941-8612.

Thank you for reviewing my request and I hope to hear from you soon.

Sincerely,

John Kirst

What forums, websites or software have you used to conduct online focus groups for qualitative research?

Should I ALWAYS do a qualitative research (e.g. in-depth interviews, focus group and cetera) before conducting an Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)? Many thanks and kind regards.

In our qualitative research focus groups, the first 3 groups got through all 3 of the research design questions. The 4th group however only got to one of the 3 questions. Should we exclude the results from the 4th group because the information is incomplete?

If not how do we account for the discrepancy in the methods, results and discussion of our paper?

Since face to face is not an option, what virtual platform would you recommend using to conduct a focus group with students during this pandemic?

1. Zoom

2. Teams

3. Blackboard Collaborate

4. Other

I have quantitative data from phase 1 and 2 and qualitive focus groups as phase 3. I would like to consider few focus groups as control and other focus groups as study ones where I will introduce the quantitative findings from phase 1 and 2 to the study focus groups then check for their responses while leaving the control focus groups with normal discussion. Is that legitimate intervention?

I am involved in qualitative research and at the time working on the methodological background. My colleague, which was doing the interviews, brought to me they did some focus group interviews. Now I am looking at the numbers of focus group interviews (3 in total) my colleague did and two times only 2 people and 1 time only 3 people took part. My question is: can this be mentioned as a focus groud study ? Or is there any other kind of "interview - style" more compatible when it comes to describing the sample and method ?

In the literature it a group is mostly described as 3 + participants.

Kind regards

Due to the Corona virus I will be doing realtime focus groups with ageing disabled people instead of face-to-face focus groups. I am interested in people's experiences with conducting this type of online research. What are do''s and don'ts?

Among the various methods of data collection in qualitative research, some are most frequently used like focus group. Frequently used methods of data collection in qualitative research.

Due to the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak, we've had to postpone several (physical) workshops we had planned in Europe. We're considering virtual workshops, but want to know what platforms we could use to host these workshops, which involve focus groups with visual materials and ranking exercises, in order to get as close to the "real thing" as possible.

I have quantitative data from phase 1 and 2 and qualitive focus groups as phase 3. I would like to consider few focus groups as control and other focus groups as study ones where I will introduce the quantitative findings from phase 1 and 2 to the study focus groups then check for their responses while leaving the control focus groups with normal discussion. Is that legitimate intervention?

My PhD supervisor wants me to add a focus group to test the face validity of my research findings. The findings are from a quantitative study in a field of training for those working in organisations, and I am in the phase of writing the thesis.

After studying the literature, I decided not to do qualitative research because of my own worldview or ontology, which is post-positivist. Also, the literature in the field was mostly qualitative, anecdotal reports of personal experiences and that dominant approach had not been productive for developing the field. My decision was to do something different, and therefore quantitative.

Now, my supervisor wants me to do a focus group at the end, to organize a group, present my findings and see if they agree. Their reasoning is that this is what the department is familiar with and has come to expect over time.

My view is that a focus group at this stage and in this particular world is methodologically unsound, and that my research results would never lead to choosing such a method. What to do now?

I am working on a mulitdisciplinary project focused on environmental behaviour and attitudes towards protected areas and we need literature about focus groups that would be accesible and clear for researchers of various backgrounds (sociology, social psychology, environmental economy). What would you recommend?