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6.5.4 Focus groups
Focus groups involve a recorded discussion of perhaps 5–10 people who
share a common interest (such as having undertaken the same holiday).
Open questions are asked of the group and the interviewer acts as a
discussion leader. The main functions, other than those of the leader, are to
ensure that the discussion does not stray from the topic in hand by
occasionally prompting, and to ensure that all members have an equal
opportunity to speak.
Focus groups are useful to gain an understanding of why particular
behaviour occurred. In tourism, this can be most useful in finding out what
motivates travel to particular destinations. Information collected in this way
is often detailed and lengthy. Thus, focus groups interviews are particularly
valuable in the exploratory stages of research or to provide qualitative
information alongside a quantitative survey. When developing the focus
group method, the following list provides some practical considerations:
1. The leader must have thorough training and experience.
2. The location must be appropriate for the respondents who will make
up the group. Thus, a back room of a public house, hotel or church hall
might be suitable for resort guest house owners, marketing managers
of airlines and touring caravan owners, respectively. You can also use a
room in your college or university to carry out focus groups.
3. Number of respondents: 5–10 is ideal as larger than this may be
unmanageable in terms of letting everyone have an equal input.
4. Timing: to ensure a respectable response rate, select a time when
respondents are most likely to be available.
5. Recording: tape recording is easiest but video recording may provide
additional insights into the dynamics of the group. The main
consideration is that the recording equipment must be quiet and
unobtrusive.
6. Respondent type: respondents should share a common interest related
to the topic of the research. There should be balance within the group
in terms of gender, age or other characteristics (e.g. buying behaviour).
Some groups may be made up of particular types (e.g. all male) but
effort should be made to avoid a single individual differing
significantly in some way from the rest of the group. If possible,
respondents should not know each other or have had previous
experience of this type of research.
7. Refreshments: when respondents arrive, they should be welcomed and
helped to relax. Refreshments can be served and respondents can get to
know each other informally.
8. Questions: the leader opens the discussion with some general questions
and an explanation of how the discussion will be run. From this point
on, the leader takes a ‘back seat’ role unless:
one person dominates the discussion (must be suppressed)
a respondent is not taking part (question should be specifically
directed)
a respondent is aggressive/unhelpful (reason for aggression
probed and encouraged to participate positively).
9. Silences: these can be embarrassing, but the leader should resist
stepping in unless absolutely necessary. Pauses can prompt
respondents to become involved with comments that have been
carefully thought out.
Overall, focus groups can yield large amounts of valuable qualitative data.
The results come not only from what was said by members of the group but
also from the interaction within the group. Where it is important to
investigate the reason for behaviour, group interviews can be most useful,
especially in the exploratory stages of the project.
There are practical issues associated with conducting focus groups,
particularly when the time set aside for the research is limited and
respondents are difficult to find. Emma, who conducted her undergraduate
research last year into the effect of branding on the millennial event
attendee, planned to do her research using focus groups of students at the
university. We can see the issues that she had during her organisation of
these sessions in
Illustration 6.4
. Despite these issues, the research was
successfully completed and the findings were very interesting.
Illustration 6.4 Practical issues associated with the organisation
of focus groups
The process of data collection was simple in nature and for the
size of the sample it worked most effectively compared to other
data collection processes. However, problems arose when trying
to find participants to take part in the focus groups. Due to the
time of year, students were very busy with exams and work,
therefore many could not spare the time. Although an initial
setback, the sample of participants that attended provided
satisfying responses to the research question. Within each of the
focus groups, there was always one person that was more vocal
than the others (such as Lily, Harry, Alice, Ella, Hazel and
Finn). Focus group 3 was particularly bad for participation and
contribution, although this could be associated with the IT
equipment failure early on, which meant that the running order
of the session had to change slightly. However, the focus group
lacked the momentum after the equipment was fixed, therefore it
could be related to the participants in the group. This contradicts
previous literature by Barrows (2000), who said that smaller
focus groups allow you to drill deeper and attain more in-depth
insights, although this was only isolated to this group. From the
results and the quality of data collected, a smaller group of four
people (Focus group 5), rather than a large group (Focus group
1), allowed the participants to go into more detail about their
experiences and opinions.
Source: ‘The significance of brand design and colour on
event purchase and participation amongst Generation Y’ by
Emma Macphie, final-year project, supervised by Susan
Horner, Plymouth University, 2016.
Another issue was finding male participants for the focus
groups; however, the males that took part in the groups seemed
to have similar views to the female participants, therefore the
author questions whether the responses differ much between
men and women.
Table 6.3
indicates who attended each group
and how many attended per group.
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