Page 376 - Effective group discussion theory and practice by Adams, Katherine H. Brilhart, John K. Galanes, Gloria J

Preparing for Problem- Solving Discussions 359

often yield unexpected information and provide richer data. However, answers to
open- ended questions are more difficult and time- consuming to tally. In contrast,
closed- ended questions can be asked of many people quickly and are easily tabu-
lated if formulated properly. You may want to use both.
It is invalid to generalize findings from a casual or haphazard sample to a larger
population. For example, interviews about location of a new sanitary landfill with
50 people who happen to enter a particular door of city hall will not provide an
accurate picture of the beliefs of residents of that city, or even of people who go to
city hall. A scientifically designed sample (a representative sample) must be taken if
the results of interviews are to be generalized to members of a larger population.
Focus Group Interviews Individual interviews can be time- consuming; Focus groups
allow several people to be interviewed at the same time. In a focus group, participants Focus group
are encouraged to talk in an unstructured way about a topic presented to them by a A group procedure
trained facilitator, who often simply announces the topic and lets participants respond that encourages
freely. This free- association discussion is usually tape- recorded for later content anal- freewheeling
ysis. As an information- gathering technique, focus groups provide two advantages. discussion focusing
They use researchers’ time efficiently, and, because participants discuss issues in a on a specific topic or
group, they help spark ideas the focus group participants might not think of during an issue, often used to
individual interview. analyze people’s
Increasingly, researchers are using online focus groups because they can be interests and values
easier to set up, less expensive, and more convenient for participants. Stewart and for market research.
Shamdasani note that telephone focus groups have been around for a long time,
1
but the advent of the Internet has expanded the possibilities. Three different
kinds of online focus groups include asynchronous groups, synchronous groups,
and groups in virtual worlds. Asynchronous groups, also known as bulletin board
focus groups, take place over a period of time after the facilitator introduces a
discussion topic. Participants can check in and respond when it’s convenient for
them. Blackboard, for instance, has discussion threads that make such check- in
easy and convenient for participants. Synchronous groups are more like tradi-
tional in- person focus groups and happen in real time. All participants join the
discussion, which is led by a facilitator, at the same time and respond in voice,
chat, or video mode. Technologies such as Adobe Connect, Skype, and GoTo-
Meeting make participation easy. Finally, groups in virtual worlds interact through
avatars. Gaming environments such as World of Warcraft and Second Life make
virtual interactions easy. The ability to conduct online focus groups means that
groups can be more representative of who the researchers are trying to survey
than if participants have to be in a single location at a particular time; they expand
the reach of researchers.
Focus groups have long been used in advertising and marketing research to
discover potential markets and possible directions for innovation. Today, politicians
use them to gauge voter reaction to issues; organizations, to identify problems,
interests, and concerns of employees; and many different kinds of groups, to
research particular issues.

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