qualitative research anyone?

[mousie]

anyone know about moderating focus groups - what it involves, exactly...

Making sure everyone gets to talk, and that the questions that the researcher wants answers to get asked mostly. You need to be good at facilitating the shyer people to talk and nicely shutting up the noisy ones. May involve writing things down on a flip chart (often done in pairs - ie one person asks questions, and one person scribes). You may also have to manage conflict, depending on the situation.

Plus make sure you have a plan of what you want covered and time the group so that you don't get stuck on just one issue and don't get on to any of the others.

any courses either of you would recommend. A friend of mine (who is a very good journalist and broadcaster) reckons a course would be a waste of time and it is intrinsically common sense and easy peasy (her words). I am less sure!

Hmm. I don't think it is common sense, as with anything, it's not difficult but it's experience and learning by mistakes. Doing a course gets all those mistakes done for you, so you don't screw up when you moderate yourself.

The Media Research Group used to do courses, as do the MRSA. Will google for you.

MRG are doing sod all but MRS (not MRSA - that's a hospital infection isn't it?) are doing courses.

here

Bloody pricey though if you're not a member and a company aren't paying for you.

You could just get a group of tolerant friends to come round, set them a topic to discuss (with a couple of bottles of wine) and practice moderating on them. Would be a lot cheaper and if you're having to fund the course yourself, I'm not at all sure that the best part of £500 would be worth it.

I think that your friend does have something. Some people are naturally better at moderating than others, but experience helps enourmously. I have done a couple of courses, but all through the NHS. As to whether you need a course probably depends on your experience of similar situations. I am sure there are some good qualitative research courses. You might also find a straight facilitation course useful, in particular one for managing difficult people. Moderating a happy group discussing something that they are at ease with is fairly easy - it's when you have people who don't like each other, or a difficult topic that you have problems. It may be your friend thinks that you have the right temperament/experience - or it may be that she does! I would look at management training specialists in your field/the field you are aiming for. They wil probably do soemthing useful.

There is also the AQR AQR site which provides training.
Why are you interested??
I worked in market research and qual moderation is not easy and def. something I would not be able to do - journalists always say these things are easy as they don't want to pay for them!!!

Hmmm... I worked for an agency, and have moderated focus groups, and I would agree with others, that's it's not as easy as it looks, and you definitely need experience, and a certain ability to get the most out of people.

You have to be able to do all of the following:

• structure the discussion with lots of 'open' questions to enable the participants to genuinely discuss the issue/ product without undue influence
• 'hone' down into areas of potential interest for your client
• command respect from the group/ manage 'loud mouths' and draw out the shy ones
• allow the discussion to flow, yet also cover the relevant material in the right time
• write it all up afterwards!!

What are you thinking of researching?

I use focus groups (in social science research) and i'd agree with the others it's quite easy to understand the basics but it takes practice to do it well.

also, it's quite different doing it in market research, or in other sorts of qualitative research - different techniques, different priorities.

there is quite a lot written on moderating focus groups, for both market research and for academic research. you could try reading some of that, if you're not sure about going on a course.

I am thinking of doing some moderating for a marketing company (obviously..) - subject will be wine/ wine issues. I know a lot about wine, used to be a radio producer- i am good at interviewing on the phone and one to one - but not practiced in group situations. on the one half I am scared shitless, on the other I just think any return back to work is scary and I can't say no to opportunities at the moment - I need to seize everything possible and say, yup, sure I can do that. Do you see where I am at? have look at the AQR website and noticed they have a bursary going - so will apply for that definitely (can't afford any course otherwise..)

I think that doing a bit of reading up and then getting your friends around might be a good start then. Tell them to be a bit bolshie, have a list of questions you need to ask, and do the write up. That should give you an idea of what you are good at/bad at and where you need to learn more (it's also something that most courses do - you could also ask a couple of friends just to observe and feed back). Not quite sure why you think it's obvious that you will be working for a marketing company - focus groups are used in all sorts of settings where you need to find out what people think, and research settings too.