Have you done a focus group for your dissertation before?

[BarkisIsWilling]

Hi,

I'm in my second year of a master's in HR. About to embark upon writing my dissertation, it's been suggested at work that I conduct focus groups to collect data on performance management (which is my subject area).

Has anyone done this before?

If so, do you have any tips between now and when I can borrow "Focus Groups as Qualitative Research" from the library?

TIA

lol - top tip is have a friend to work your technology use at least two recorders and place them strategically so you will pick up everything... and test before hand!

what is your research q?

are you likely to have to use some sort of icebreaker to start people off? are they people that know each other, or all strangers? no idea if appropriate, but good intro and ground rules before you start...

really, the only bit that's crucial is trying to keep only one person talking at a time lol - so difficult to try and disentangle multiple voices when transcribing.

a lot depends on whether you are working from a strictly closed question list or just a general discussion around a topic - you either need to be really bossy and keep everyonr on track, or be switched on enough to guide in interesting directions and let it flow, whichever is appropriate...

oh, and book your room for at least 2 hours longer than you think you need it lol... sometimes they go on a bit and are too interesting to yell 'stop! thanks! bye!'

and leave forever for the transcription... how are you managing your data analysis?

am assuming you already have a sample btw

MWIA, thanks for scaring me! Helpful tips, and many thanks.

No, I haven't firmed anything up yet. No sample, now ?ns. That's what my Xmas leave is going on.

I will look at the relationship between performance mgt & L&D outcomes for staff. How do they identify L&D that is needed, is it thru' appraisals, 1-2-1s ...

Any ideas welcomed! Especially about questions, like how many. I'm in the library now and will be looking at some texts shortly.

do you have a specific organisation that you are looking at? ie one company, or a specific type of business eg call centres/ telecomms/ whatever?

so, really you need two different focus groups, one of management, and one of 'workers' (lol) so to speak... although it would be interesting to run those and then do a third with a mixed group to bounce the ideas off each other...

will thunk..

It's a specific dept of a publicly funded organisation.

ok - if you are part of the org yourself, presumably you are acting as your own gatekeeper? are you part of the management team that would be taking part if you weren't the researcher? (ie have a pretty good idea who/ where your sample is coming from?) or do you have a key person that is doing your liaison currently?

when are you aiming for? has the uni got recording eqt you can borrow etc? someone else on your course to help you run the group/s?