Previously, I talked about Survey’s (even though I posted it April 27, 2016). Today, I’ll collect all the posts about focus groups and add a bit more.

2010/01/05 Talks about the type of questions to use in a Focus Group

2010/01/27 One of three topics mentioned

2010/09/09 Talks about focus groups in terms of analyzing a conversation

2011/05/31 Talks about focus groups in the context of sampling

2011/06/23 Mentions Krueger, my go to

2013/11/15 Mentions focus groups

2014/10/23  Mentions focus groups and an individual with information

2015/02/11 Mentions focus groups…

2015/05/08 Virtual focus groups

Discovery

Although focus groups are a mentioned throughout many of my posts, there are few that are exclusively devoted to focus groups. That surprises me. I need to talk more about focus groups. I especially need to talk about what I found when I did the virtual focus groups, more than with the specific post. From the interest at AEA last year, there needs to be much discussion.

So OK. More about focus groups.

Although Dick  Krueger  is my go to reference for focus groups (I studied with him, after all), there are other books on focus groups. (I just discovered that Krueger and Casey have also revised and published a 5th edition.)

The others for example (in no particular order),

1. Stewart, D. W. & Shamadasani, P. N. (1990). Focus groups: Theory and practice. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications. There is a 3rd edition of this book available
2. Morgan, D. L. (ed.) (1993). Successful focus groups: Advancing the state of the art. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications.
3. Greenbaum, T. L. (2000). Moderating focus groups. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
4. Greenbaum, T. L. (2nd edition). (1998). The handbook for focus group research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
5. Carey, M. A. & Asbury, J-E. (2012). Focus group research. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press, Inc.

Plus many others that are published by Sage, available from Amazon, and others. I think you can find one that works for you.

Mary Marczak and Meg Sewell have an introduction to focus groups here (it is shorter that reading the book by Krueger and Casey).

I think it is important to remember that focus groups:

1. Yield qualitative data;
2. Are used in evaluation (just not in a pre-post sense);
3. Are a GROUP activity of people who are typically unfamiliar with each other.

Next time: More on focus groups.

my .

molly.