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ABSTRACT
Qualitative research in Australia developed rapidly in the 1 960s in response to a growing frustration with conventional survey research methods for investigating attitudes and a revolutionary spirit in the public opinion research industry that encouraged innovation. Faced with the realisation that some of the most significant attitudes and motivations are neither 'rational' nor 'objective', It became clear that such phenomena might be more appropriately investigated by non-rational, non-linear research methods. The unstructured, non-directive, in-home, affinity-group discussion emerged as one of the most fruitful of such methods.
The method is designed to be as naturalistic as possible: existing social groups, meeting in their 'natural habitat', engaging in freeflowing, spontaneous conversation about the topic. The method eschews prepared 'topic outlines' and active moderation. Part of the philosophical justification for the method is that it attempts to minimise the 'experiment effect' by avoiding many of the design flaws inherent in conventional 'focus groups'. It also permits direct observation of the phenomenon of 'opinion leadership' within natural social groups.
The paper concludes with a brief description of the conduct of an 'unfocused' group discussion, including practical tips on analysis and interpretation of qualitative data.
The current reliance on so-called 'focus groups' may have blinded us to the origins and purpose of qualitative research - and to the possibility that there is an inherent design flaw in the conventional focusgroup approach. This paper argues that the very things drawing researchers to the dynamics of smallgroup interaction as a research tool should also make us cautious about doing anything likely to interfere with the natural operation of those dynamics.
The history of qualitative methodology in Australian market and social research has been characterised by slow and gradual acceptance, followed by its more recent 'high fashion' status. When, in the late 1950s, we first heard about the 'depth research' being conducted by the US's Dr Ernest Dichter at his Institute for Motivational Research, most of us in the fledgling Australian market research industry were inclined to be sceptical or dismissive. It sounded unscientific and faddish: we were engaged with far less frivolous questions concerning random probability sampling (Ian McNair was introducing us to census collectors' districts as sampling units), and the most furious debates were about the validity...