New technologies continue to push the boundaries of collaboration, bringing together geographically dispersed people into a single, virtual space. Combined with budget pressures, the availability of high-speed Internet and online communication platforms encourage opportunities to use virtual focus groups.Virtual, or online, focus groups may be either asynchronous or synchronous (Mann and Stewart 2001). In asynchronous focus groups, participants access a site to answer moderator-posed questions or respond to other participants' comments. Participants in synchronous focus groups interact with the moderator and each other "live."Despite conditions favoring their use, comparatively little literature exists on using online focus groups for social science research, particularly webinar-type synchronous focus groups. Mayer and colleagues (2006a; 2006b) conducted five such groups with caregivers and providers of pediatric patients and found that participants in the chat-based groups were able to share their experiences and express emotions by using emoticons available in the conferencing system. Participants' comfort with the messaging technology varied, and some required assistance with technical problems such as logging on or using the software.Underhill and Olmsted (2003) compared transcripts from face-to-face focus groups and chat-based, online focus groups and found no significant differences in participation rates, the number of unique ideas generated, the total number of relevant comments, or participant satisfaction. However, more off-topic comments were generated in the online groups.What literature exists on this topic originated nearly a decade ago, and technological innovations affecting this data collection method evolve rapidly.In this paper, we draw from our experiences on two recent studies to describe considerations for using online, synchronous focus groups as well as lessons learned from implementing them.

The relationship between Latino fathers' immigrant status and their involvement with their 12-month-old infants was examined using the Fragile Families data set, a longitudinal birth cohort study. We examined differences among 787 immigrant and nonimmigrant Latino fathers along three dimensions of father involvementaccessibility, engagement, and caretaking, as reported by both mothers and fathers. First generation immigrant fathers were more accessible to their infants, but showed lower levels of engagement with and caretaking of their children compared to nonimmigrant fathers, controlling for numerous background factors. Immigrant fathers' lower level of engagement was partially mediated by fathers' traditional attitudes. Findings indicate that there may be some culturally different norms for immigrant fathering. Culturally-relevant measures of fathering should be included in future large-scale studies, including constructs such as familism and acculturation.

Compared to higher income couples, those with low incomes experience a host of challenges and disparities in their intimate relationships, including lower levels of relationship satisfaction, higher rates of breakup of cohabiting relationships, and higher rates of divorce. In recognition of these disparities, a number of interventions targeting couples with low incomes have been developed. These interventions historically focused primarily on improving relationship skills through relationship education, but in recent years a new approach that integrates economic‐focused interventions alongside relationship education has emerged. This integrated approach is intended to better address the challenges facing couples with low incomes, but the theory‐driven, top‐down approach to intervention development leaves open the question of whether couples with low incomes are interested in participating in a program that combines these two disparate components. The current study draws from a large randomized controlled trial of one such program (N = 879 couples) to provide descriptive information about the recruitment and retention of couples with low incomes in a study of relationship education with integrated economic services. Results indicate that it is possible to recruit a large, linguistically, and racially diverse sample of couples living with low income to participate in an integrated intervention, but the uptake of relationship‐focused services was higher than the uptake of economic‐focused services. Additionally, attrition over a 1‐year follow‐up data collection period was low but required labor‐intensive efforts to reach participants for the survey. We highlight successful strategies for the recruitment and retention of diverse couples and discuss implications for future intervention efforts.

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