Focus group methodology in a life course approach – individual accounts within a peer cohort group

Abstract

This paper explores the use of focus group methodology as part of a life course approach building on Julia Brannen's pioneering work in these two areas. Much life course research uses individual interviews, including biographical interview techniques. It is less usual to find focus groups used within the life course perspective. This paper draws on a PhD study of young British and Asian adults' experiences of the transition from university to full-time employment, using focus groups as part of a multi-method approach, within a life course perspective. The study drew explicitly on Julia Brannen's approach to life course transitions. Three focus group excerpts are presented and discussed to illustrate how focus group data can further understanding of the ways in which a group of peers discusses the transition to work and especially future work-life balance. We show how focus group discussions about individual choice for future work and "life" or "lifestyle" can highlight shared assumptions of this birth cohort group as well as areas of disagreement and contention, rooted in both individual experiences and societal and socio-cultural expectations. We relate this to Julia Brannen's conceptualisation of the three different modalities which young people draw on to talk about the future.

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“…Focus groups of this type are recognised as an especially effective way to enable the articulation of themes that are under-researched and difficult to describe and to empower the voice of under-represented groups, enabling collective sense-making grounded in shared experience. Furthermore, this method allowed us to move beyond the individual stories narrated in interviews to begin to grasp the narrative of a generation (Chatrakul Na Ayudhya et al 2014) that linked individual biographies with layers of context (Brannen and Nilsen 2013), personal experiences to wider processes of social change in the everyday practice of nursing work, hospital organisation and health care.…”

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“…It has been conducted with both female and male participants from almost the same age group to have a balanced, discussionoriented atmosphere. This allows for justifying the reasons for certain participants to have certain opinions, eliminating the abstract forms of information collected from questionnaires and surveys [14]. Another reason is that focus groups are useful in research that is oriented towards understanding customers' behaviours and patterns [15].…”

“…However, focus groups put the extra burden upon researchers' shoulders in terms of ethical and personal considerations, and require special inter-personal skills. Researchers have to be very conscious about participants' personal ideas and maintain a very professional attitude [14] III. EXPERIMENT The experiment has been conducted at the University of Jordan with the help of 17 students studying a senior course called "e-commerce platforms".…”

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“…As such, accounts generated should be interpreted as constructed within this specific social situation and context. As with many other research methods, they are shaped by the interests of the researcher and the questions that are asked and by the participants' interpretations of the questions and their own interests (Chatrakul Na Ayudhya et al, 2014;Brannen, 2012). Focus groups, however, are not meant to be a forum for debate, therapy, or an opportunity for an educational session.…”

“…And also, it can be used as "part of a mixed method evaluation approach to increase the validity of evaluation findings" (Samfira & Raţă, 2015). Focus groups are socially organised situations, where participants and moderators enter the setting under shared assumptions of performance (Brannen & Pattman, 2005;Chatrakul Na Ayudhya, Smithson, & Lewis, 2014). As such, accounts generated should be interpreted as constructed within this specific social situation and context.…”