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A fresh perspective on the power of focus groups
INTRODUCTION
The idea for this study originated from an impromptu conversation started by a research respondent at the end of a focus group, hypothesising the reasons as to why people attended focus group discussions.
The raising of this issue prompted other respondents to join in and resulted in a mini-discussion being held. Probing at the end of further focus groups again revealed a similar willingness and enthusiasm amongst respondents to talk about the research process they were involved in. As a result of this organic research process, the research team soon amassed a wealth of qualitative insight into this subject.
What to do with this information, as well as an apparent need for respondents to have their say about the research process prompted further deliberation and a realisation that, while the market research industry asks research participants many things, it seldom asks them about the research process itself. The research team felt that the insights that formal research into this area could generate would be beneficial to the industry, aiding understanding of the components of an optimal research experience.
To this end, the research team undertook further, formal market research to both further explore and measure the reasons behind focus group attendance and how the focus group methodology compared to other types of research in terms of respondent perceptions of degree of self-expression, contribution and engagement.
The findings of this research were presented at two AMSRS seminars attended by a cross-section of client-side and agency-side researchers (conducted in Sydney and Melbourne). Outcomes from these discussion sessions, in terms of implications for the industry have been included as a separate commentary at the end of each section of the report.
RESEARCH METHOD
In order to obtain both further understanding of the topic and to quantify the key issues raised so far, the research team developed a semi-structured survey as the data collection tool for the formal phase of research.
The survey was seven minutes in length and was dispatched to a demographically broad cross-section of people who had participated in at least one focus group discussion within a 24-month period prior to the research. The respondents were recruited from the databases of two established qualitative...