A little post on focus groups

Focus group research is designed to have a setting that feels natural and comfortable for participants. Moreover, a successful focus group should model successful discussions. For me, it seems like focus group research is primarily different from other types of research because of the environment. There is not a white-coated expert asking questions in focus group research; rather the group of participants (hopefully) feed discussion.

McNealy describes focus groups as having a very specific, controlled group of participants. In this way, then, focus group research may not yield results that apply to mass populations. However, not all research questions call for generalizable conclusions. 

As discussed in class, I think focus groups could be great if participants are already involved in the activity (word choice?) the researcher is inquiring. This way, the participants can lead a successful discussion without much moderation or instruction. In this way, focus groups could be useful as a capstone for the participants—a way to give back to participants. I do not, therefore, think focus group research can be used for all research questions. I think that the time component of research (where a researcher is at) can limit focus group research, too.