Recruiting of Focus Group
Recruitment may be the least glamorous aspect of focus groups, but it is absolutely essential to their success. Focus group participants are often selected due to their willingness to discuss their knowledge or experiences related to the goals of the overall research project. In many evaluation instances, the potential focus group participants will already be determined. For example, a focus group may be recruited from a classroom of students who used the educational software. If a group has not been pre-determined, it may be necessary to establish screening criteria to reach the targeted population. My target focus group participants are the people who are R/C pilots and have the awareness of JR products. I have chosen the members of British Model Flying Society who have weekly meeting in Newcastle Town Moor. I wrote an invitation letter and gave it to 10 people one week before. It was very difficult to ask somebody to sit down and accepted my interview for nothing. I decided to buy some small gifts to any of those who are willing to accept my invitation. Finally, I was success, although only 6 people can join.
Successful strategies when recruiting participants:
Convey a sense that the research will be interesting and worthwhile.
Offer incentives to increase motivation – a small cash incentive, free food, or gift certificate.
Make participation as easy as possible – choose a time and location convenient to the participants.
Follow up by calling to confirm attendance.
At every stage, let them know that their participation is important.
Preparing For the Section
The objective of the meeting is to find out the successfulness of JR Propo Ltd ( heli division ). Is it a good idea to expand R/C plane production line.
Develop six questions for the meeting for discussion. The technique of making up the question is to remain neutral position and has to avoid entering a debate situation. They will be:
- Do you be aware of the R/C product of JR?
- Have you ever owned or flown a JR heli?
- Do you like to have one JR heli?
- What do you thing about JR heli?
- Do you also fly R/C plane and what level are you currently in?
- Do you think it will be a good idea for JR to expand their product line to R/C plane and will you buy a JR plane in the future?
Planning the Section
Scheduling - I will use 1-1.5 hours time in the interview. It will be on Sunday lunch time after the weekly meeting in Newcastle Town Moor.
Setting and Refreshments - Hold sessions in a cafe during lunch hour.
Ground Rules - It's critical that all members participate as much as possible, yet the session move along while generating useful information. Because the session is often a one-time occurrence, it's useful to have a few, short ground rules that sustain participation, yet do so with focus. Consider the following three ground rules: a) keep focused, b) maintain momentum and c) get closure on questions.
Agenda - Consider the following agenda: welcome, review of agenda, review of goal of the meeting, review of ground rules, introductions, questions and answers, wrap up. Membership – 6 members have been invited in the meeting.
Plan to record the session – I don’t have any tape or video recorder, so I decided to write down the important points in the meeting.
Carry Out the meeting
Everything was going fine on that Sunday. We went to play R/C aircraft in Exhibition Park in the morning. The meeting carried out as planning in lunch time. 6 of them turned up and we started to interview straight after the meal. First of all, I introduced who I am and why we need to have this meeting. What is the topic that we are going to discuss? Why you have been chosen to be a participant? My planning was that everyone has 5 minutes to answer each of my fixed question, so it can ensure even participation, to avoid one or two people dominating the meeting. In addition, I thought to give a summary of what I have heard after each question will be a good idea.
For the first question: Do you be aware the R/C product of JR?
The summary was that they know JR is an excellent branding in radio equipment. It has good quality and unique functions and features. JR is being used by the best professional R/C pilot, Curtis Youngblood. He was the champion of the annual F3D heli competitions. It well proves the performance of JR products. Although it is relatively expensive comparing to its competitors, it is worth.
Second question: Have you ever owned or flown a JR heli?
The summary was that two of them owned them and one of them flied it before. Three for them want to have one. However, they could afford it.
Third question: Do you like to have one JR heli?
The summary was that they really want to own one, but either it is too expensive for them, or they can be bothered to try new stuffs because it takes time and money to learn.
Fourth question: What do you thing about JR heli?
The summary was that they think it is brilliant and awesome. It has many variety for choose, e.g. from intermediate level to advance level pilots, F3C and F3D models. However, it may not be a good R/C helicopter in UK. It is because the spare parts availability is not as good as other brands like kyosho and Hirobo, there is only one distributor in the whole Britain. Moreover, it is too expensive for beginner that means their target customers is mainly to advance pilot.
Fifth question: Do you also fly R/C plane and what level are you currently in?
The summary was that three out of six used to fly R/C plane. They all said they are just intermediate level. Have tried different kind of R/C plane and have good experience in it.
Last question: Do you think it will be a good idea for JR to expand their product line to R/C plane and will you buy a JR plane in the future?
The summary was that they concluded it will be a good idea because the spares problem will be solved as R/C plane doesn’t need spares to fix. They all like to buy it if the price went down a little. They said the factory of JR has moved to Malaysia, hopefully the price will go down.
The interviewing lasted for 1 hours and 10 minutes, all the summaries are my own analyses of their answers.
In the closing section, I promised members that they will receive a copy of report generated from their answer, and thanks for them coming, and adjourn the meeting.
Immediate after the section, I trouble checked my notes and write down the observation made during the section. There was a little debate in the section about the performance between JR heli and Kyosho heli.
The essence of planning is making good decisions
My experience tells me that when planning focus groups, the goal is to anticipate the decisions that must be made not only about the focus groups, but also about the overall evaluation/research project.
The primary decisions that I anticipated and considered are:
Define the purpose and outcomes of the project
Identify the personnel and staffing resources
Develop the timeline for the project
Determine who the participants will be
Develop the questions in the interview guide
Develop a recruitment plan
Set the locations, dates, and time for the sessions
Design the analysis plan
Specify the elements of the final report
Analysis of findings
Once I have completed the focus group and I am satisfied that everyone participated and I got meaningful information it is now time to try and structure my findings.
Because analysis of qualitative data is often more complex and involved than that associated with quantitative data there are a few points worth considering.
Based on the overall objective of the research try and identify major themes based on the responses to each of the questions
Once the major themes have been identified try and develop specific subsections under each theme for example positive responses to the performance of JR heli.
Base the commentary of the analysis around these themes and subsections and highlight particular areas of interest with direct quotations.
Try and retain as much flexibility in my analysis of the session’s transcripts, as the great strength of focus groups is the ability to really develop an idea or an issue and uncover areas that a survey would have missed.
In Conclusion:
Despite the sections outlined above as far as focus groups are concerned, there are no definite rules for their use. Thus, many aspects of focus groups can be adapted to meet specific needs of researchers. For example, groups charged with generating hypotheses should have a relatively unstructured agenda, while ones conducted to test hypotheses would need a relatively structured one.
Therefore the style and nature of the focus group is dependent upon what you are trying to find and from whom but if the basic steps outlined above are followed it will ensure there is a meaningful return from the session.
Finally, it is important to strive and find some way to engage with the participants as well as being innovative as possible in the approach to a session. A series of six questions may not be the best way to find out about a particular issue. For example, town planners often use large maps to allow participants to place where they think the best place for a leisure centre should be.
