Asking elaborate questions: Focus groups and the management of spontaneity

Abstract

ABSTRACT

Qualitative interviews in psychology: problems and possibilities

“…This tradition was continued by others and has evolved into substantial body of work (Houtkoop-Steenstra, 1995Maynard & Schaeffer, 1997Schaeffer & Maynard, 1996). More recently research has focused on the administration of questionnaires (Antaki, 1999;Antaki and Rapley, 1996;Antaki, Houtkoop-Steenstra, Rapley, 2000;Rapley and Antaki, 1996) the organization of interaction in social science and market research focus groups (Myers, 1998;Myers & Macnaghten, 1999;Puchta & Potter, 1999Puchta, Potter & Wolff, in press) and the administration of psychological tests (Marlaire & Maynard, 1990;Schegloff, 1999).…”

Manufacturing individual opinions: Market research focus groups and the discursive psychology of evaluation

“…Focus groups are structured around an interactional dilemma (Puchta, 1999;Puchta and Potter, 1999;cf. Billig et al, 1988).…”

Interactional formats and institutional context: a practical and exploitable distinction in interviews

“…For example, asking elaborate multiunit questions can provide a range of potential responses to participations and manage difficult tasks in institutional contexts (Linell et al 2003;Puchta and Potter 1999). This attention to strategies for engag ing with particular interactional moments dovetails with this paper's analytic aims.…”

“…However, Morgan identifies one kind of interaction he suggests is "almost always" important to attend to as interaction: when partici pants rapidly give multiple, chaining responses, as analyzed in this paper. Ana lysts of discourse and others who value interaction in focus groups suggest that fostering interaction in focus groups is important in many ways, but many stop at the stage of planning focus groups (e.g., Kratz 2010), offer inexplicit suggestions (e.g., Markova et al 2007), or do not explain how their findings can be used in practice or in analysis (with exceptions to the last point, i.e., Puchta and Potter 1999;Tracy and Robles 2010).…”

“…While the purpose of having a focus group is to encourage multiple voices, the general advice in conducting focus group is that useful discussion can only occur with proper monitoring (Myers 1998). Puchta and Potter (1999) identify this tension in focus groups as being be tween the structured element (in which predefined topics and/or questions are meant to guide or control discussion) and the interaction element (in which talk is ideally meant to be spontaneous and conversational). This apparent dilemma between participation and constraint (or as Markova et al [2007] put it, "free but moderated") is a theoretical concern related to the goal of focus group interview ing, a practical concern in terms of running focus groups, and an analytic con cern for working with focus group data.…”