Free Essay Example on Focus Groups

Focus groups are some of the most effective methods of conducting a qualitative analysis. Focus groups allow the participants to give their views and perceptions about various issues. They provide a wide view bout a subject as participants discuss exhaustively issues on a given matter. For one to have a workable focus group, he needs to define the purpose, which in turn helps in determining the selection of participants and the facilitation process. Focus groups are a representation of the actual population, and the collection of participants should be random. For one to collect accurate data that represents the feelings and opinions of the real population, the process of picking the participants should be fair with minimal interruptions that may alter the views of the people in the group. When conducting the focus group, one should be able to create a conducive environment that promotes openness and honesty in the focus group. Ensuring people of their freedom of speech helps them open up on matters that affect the discussion. A good example of a focus group is the BBC focus group discussion that sought to find out the interest New Yorkers had in their news.

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One of the most distinctive features of this focus group meeting was the profiling of the people in the group. For the company to get divergent opinions about their news, they divided their viewers into two different groups. These groups would help the company cater for individual differences among the users. The discussion focused on two major groups depending on their ages. This helped provide different views that would make the company popular to people of different ages in New York. These focus groups would help provide perspectives of different people in the New York society. The effectiveness of this focus groups depended on the ability of the facilitator to promote an open environment for discussion. Differences in the answers given by people of different groups would help facilitate

The initial step of these focus groups involved the completion of simple exercises that required them to complete their outline their requirements in the news. These exercises brainstormed the meeting as the facilitator used these views as a guide to the group discussion. These questionnaires opened up the minds of the audience and helped them organize their thoughts in preparation for the discussion. The facilitator gave the participants the freedom to express themselves in various in their appropriate manner. After giving them samples of news clips from BBC, he asked them what their opinions were and the aspects they liked in the news. From their responses, he could formulate a pattern about the responses. In one of the scenes, the people were asked whether BBC was biased; the people that said it was biased all had voted for President Bush. The facilitator had to be keen to formulate a trend on the nature of these responses. The facilitator ought to be keen and friendly to ensure that he gets honest responses regarding various issues raised.

From the focus group, there was an overwhelming response that most New Yorkers watched BBC to get a different point of view. The focus group provided the information that many people watched BBC use it as a balance and get the view of the world about various issues in America. The success of the focus group depends not only on the preparation but also on the facilitation.

References

Focus group sample. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gR1zu7i0-E