Focus Group Research: Retrospect and Prospect

Abstract

This chapter is both historical and conceptual, first highlighting the origins, tensions, and continuities/discontinuities of focus group research and then arguing for how such research embodies three primary, related functions: inquiry, pedagogy, and political. The quasiunique potentials or affordances of focus group work are explored, including mitigating the researcher’s authority; disclosing the constitutive power of discourse; approximating the natural; filling in knowledge gaps and saturating understanding; drawing out complexity, nuance, and contradiction; disclosing eclipsed connections; and creating opportunities for political activism. Contemporary threats to focus group work are described and new research frontiers are proposed, especially in relation to new information technologies. The chapter integrates historical, conceptual, and practical perspectives to fully explain the potentials of focus group research, with the goal of advancing a set of understandings about focus group work that attends to its relatively unique potentials for conducting qualitative inquiry across a wide range of topics and disciplinary contexts.

Social Processes Informing Toileting Behavior Among Adolescent and Adult Women: Social Cognitive Theory as an Interpretative Lens

“…The SHARE study used focus group methodology and a community-engaged research approach to explore adolescent and adult women’s experiences, perceptions, beliefs, knowledge, and behaviors related to bladder health and function across the life course. Focus group methodology was well suited for gaining insight through discourse and discussion from a small group of individuals who share a social context (Kamberelis & Dimitriadis, 2014). A multidisciplinary team, with expertise in nursing, adolescent health, behavioral and social sciences, and public health, led the analysis and interpretation of findings.…”

Social and Behavioral Research with Undocumented Immigrants: Navigating an IRB Committee

“…Qualitative research can be reflexive and anti-oppressive (Shaw, 2008). In addition, a focus group approach may benefit participants by helping them co-produce knowledge and transcend current circumstances bounded by systems of oppression (Kamberelis & Dimitriadis, 2014). However, previous research has also called for qualitative researchers to represent participants' stories in a respectful manner (Jones, 2002).…”

“…The study involved conducting interviews and focus groups with individuals who identified as being undocumented and/or DACAmented. As previously mentioned, a potential benefit of participation in a focus group can include knowledge co-creation and brainstorming how to transcend current circumstances (Kamberelis & Dimitriadis, 2014). However, in a focus group, it is not possible to guarantee what participants would do with the information they learned about others in attendance.…”

From Absolute Poverty to Participatory Poverty Assessment and Back Again? A Critique of Poverty Scorecard through a Case Study from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan

“…Initially, I conducted 15 individual interviews to collect the narratives of the staff and community members regarding the adoption of PSC and its administration. To compare and contrast the views expressed therein, the same interviewees were requested for participation in FGDs (Kamberelis and Dimitriadis, 2014). The same interviewees were recruited for FGDs because recruiting new participants and engaging them in pro-active and open discussion in group situations could have been considerably challenging.…”