A focus group consists of
selected individuals who are brought together to discuss specific topics. Under
the guidance of a focus group moderator, participants freely express their
feelings and opinions about provided topics. The size of a focus group is
usually six to twelve people and its discussion usually lasts for sixty to
ninety minutes.
Advantage
Anthropologists use focus
groups to find reasons why people feel the way they do about particular issues.
For example, if a researcher wants to know why people withdraw from an adult ESL
program in a community, it may be effective to ask a focus group when they find
it difficult to come to classes. Anthropologists also use focus groups to
investigate the process of people’s decision-making. For example, if the
researcher asks the adult ESL students what services are important factors that
aid in attending the classes, they will evaluate the support services through
discussion. Therefore, the researcher discovers how people decide which services
are beneficial for them. Focus groups enable
anthropologists to collect a large amount of ethnographic information in a short
period. Although transcribing the data is time consuming, conducting focus
groups is faster than interviewing the same number of people separately.
Disadvantage
In order to run successful
focus groups, anthropologists need to select participants who are homogenous in
social status, interests, and knowledge related to research topics. It is easy
for participants to express their views when they share similar characteristics.
One of the disadvantages of focus groups stems from this selection criteria.
Instead of randomly sampling potential participants, anthropologists need to
deliberately select individuals. However, a researcher can minimize this
disadvantage by becoming familiar with a community and drawing adequate numbers
of people who represent the community.
Another disadvantage has to
do with reliability. In general, researchers should be able to obtain the same
results from their research when they use the same methods. Since each focus
group is unique depending on the combination of participants, anthropologists
may obtain different results from several focus groups. In order to minimize
this disadvantage, a researcher needs to master effective moderation of focus
groups and careful analysis of the data. In this way, the researcher can get
similar results from all focus groups.
Sources:
Bernard, Russell H. 2002 Research Methods in Anthropology: Qualitative and Quantitative Methods. Walnut Creek: AltaMira Press.
Ervin,
Alexander M. 2000 Applied
Anthropology: Tools and Perspectives for Contemporary Practice. Boston: Allyn
and Bacon.
This page was created by a
Minnesota State University, Mankato student. Last updated
11/14/04.