Focus group data analysis methods how to#
Focus group data analysis methods full#

However, mini focus groups generally consist of only four or five members. Similar to single focus groups, mini focus groups consist of a moderator and group of participants. For example, through a camera or two-way mirror. During single focus group meetings, the organization conducting the research will observe the meeting from a distance. It is the role of the moderator to ask a set of questions to the others in the group, relating to a particular topic of research.

Within these groups there exists a moderator and an average group of 12 participants. The most common type of focus group is a single focus group. What are the different types of focus groups? In its methods and application, the Focus Group has created an invaluable resource for reaching below the surface, to divine just what motivates our unspoken, often unconscious, needs wants, and desires. This is where the Focus Group reigns supreme. What remains clear is this: as long as there is competition for customer attention, there will always be a need to delve a little deeper than quantitative data can deliver.

Focus group data analysis methods full#

This effectively brings the practice full circle, with a recognition that, for Focus Groups to continue to achieve meaningful contributions to market insights for business, a digital/online solution is but one part of a much broader range of tools (interview techniques and environment, visual aids and facilitator-led discussions being a few others) that companies should utilize… including the ‘traditional’ round table Q&A championed in the 1950s. With the massive growth in online and telemarketing companies seeking to survey key groups as a service to business, attitudes towards participation have rapidly changed. Where once a focus group would comprise a small cohort, perhaps of eight people, being interviewed around a table over a period of time, today modern methodology allows for online or teleconferenced approaches.Ĭlearly focus group interview advantages and disadvantages come into play here.

Yet, not all types of focus group discussions are equal. Participants are typically targeted because they have previously made choices relating to a product or service or those in its immediate competitive landscape.Ī focus group research example might be as simple as asking consumers why they chose a particular brand of well-known toothpaste over another, too much more subtle and nuanced discussions of people’s attitudes to a particular political party and its policies. In essence, the organizers of a focus group seek to pinpoint attitudes by interviewing small numbers of people.

Focus group data analysis methods how to#

Ernest Dichter thus pioneered much of the practices on how to conduct a focus group that organizations use today. The solution: change the recipe so that the customer had to add an egg to the mix, thus gaining a sense of participation in the act of baking.įocus group data wasn’t so much about counting how many people chose one product over another, it was much more about gaining subjective, sometimes unconscious, consumer attitudes to what motivates or inhibits certain actions.

Dichter - using what he called ‘motivational research’ - gleaned, from speaking to working housewives, that they felt a sense of emotional conflict in serving ready-made recipes. Enter Ernest Dichter and one of the earliest examples of consumer Focus Groups. 1950s US housewives liked the idea of a ready-to-bake cake mix, but it wasn’t selling. One of the earliest examples was the Betty Crocker cake mix conundrum. This is where the Focus Group began to find favor within the marketing departments of myriad companies and latterly political parties. Yet, this failed to give a qualitative sense of what was motivating those choices in the mind of the consumer. The common research method involved logging how many of one thing took place over another. Top Tips & Traps – Employee Focus Groups DownloadĪt one time it was all about quantity over quality.