/Office of the Provost
Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching

Focus Groups

According to Krueger and Casey (2015) a focus group is “a carefully planned series of discussions designed to obtain perceptions on a defined area of interest in a permissive, non-threatening environment.” Originating in market research, today focus groups are used extensively in higher education to evaluate and assess courses, academic programs, student needs, and co curricular experiences. 

While assessment of learning occurs in courses through methods like exams, presentations, and papers, these methods are limited to determining whether students developed proficiency on a set of learning objectives. Focus groups can help shed light on the “how” and “why” of student learning, behaviors, and motivation.  Because they allow for follow up questions to probe and clarify what is shared, they are superior to surveys for identifying areas of agreement and disagreement across groups of students and for eliciting students’ suggestions for improvement. They also allow for the assessment of teaching in addition to the assessment of student learning.

Suggestions for Conducting a Focus Group

  • Optimal size is 6 to 8 participants, but it can be conducted with more
  • Conduct multiple focus groups for a single assessment project. 3 to 5 is ideal
  • Allow 1 to 2 hours for each group
  • Have an objective facilitator and a notetaker present that are not known to the participants for each group session
  • Create a comfortable environment for students

 

Focus Group Facilitation: Dos and Don'ts

Do

  • Follow the outline/questions consistently across all groups
  • Ensure each participant contributes to the conversation
  • Role model and encourage respect of all viewpoints
  • Maintain a natural and welcoming tone of voice/facial expressions

Don't

  • Share your opinions or guide participants to your conclusions
  • Rephrase or interpret participants’ comments for the group
  • Challenge the views shared
  • Answer participants’ questions

Outline of a Focus Group Session

In advance of facilitating a focus group, the following steps should be taken:
  • Identify and invite target participants
  • Create consent form (if applicable)
  • Create demographic survey/profile sheet for participants (if applicable)

At the start of a focus group, the facilitator should do the following:
  • Introduce themself
  • State the purpose of the focus group
  • Confirm that all participants have signed consent forms, and remind participants they can discontinue participation at any time
  • Explain the roles of the facilitator and the participants
  • Provide an overview of how the discussion will run (i.e. length, breaks, etc.)
  • Discuss the ground rules:  one person speaks at a time, everyone will have the opportunity to share, there are no right or wrong answers to the questions, etc.
  • Introduce the notetaker; explain if the session will be audio or video recorded
  • Invite questions from the group about the process before moving to questions

Group facilitators are provided a question guide/list to use when facilitating the discussion
  • Remind participants of the value of differing points of view
  • Periodically ask if anyone has a different perspective or another point of view
  • Use probing questions to elicit more detail/clarify participant comments
    • Please describe what you mean
    • Can you share an example?
    • Tell me more about that

Before ending the focus group, there are a few final steps:
  • Invite final comments/questions from participants
  • Reiterate key points of the consent form (if applicable)
  • Allow participants to remain behind to share any views they did not wish to share for the whole group
  • Thank the group for their participation

 

Writing Focus Group Questions

  • Use a warm-up question, in a round robin format where everyone participates (e.g. share one word to describe your experience…)
  • Ensure that questions are open-ended; use “what” and “how”
  • Questions should get participants to “think back” to their experiences
  • Avoid leading questions
  • Cluster questions by topic/subtopic
  • Sequence questions from more general to specific
  • Final question(s) should ask participants to identify the most important thing they shared, summarize their thoughts, or ask if anything was missed.

Keep in mind that focus groups provide in depth, subjective data about participants' experience. When looking for more generalizable or quantifiable data about your course, survey methods are the better option. Consider adding some closed ended questions to your end of semester course evaluations!

 

References

Billups, Felice D., "Conducting Focus Groups with College Students: Strategies to Ensure Success" (2012). Research Methodology. 2.

Krueger, R. A., and Casey, M.A. (2015). Focus groups: A practical guide for applied research. 5th Edition. Sage publications.