Determining How Many Groups to Conduct
The rule of thumb is, plan three or four focus groups with any one type of participant. Once you have conducted these, determine if you have reached saturation. Saturation is a term used to describe the point when you have heard the range of ideas and aren't getting new information. If you were still getting new information after three or four groups, you would conduct more groups. The reason you plan three to four groups is because focus groups are analyzed across groups. The analyst looks for patterns and themes across groups.
Think About the Final Report: What Type of People Do You Want to Be Able to Say Something About?
Tip
When trying to figure out how to configure focus groups, think about what type of people you want to be able to say something about in your final report. Do you want to be able to say something about how new moms feel about a program, or is it Important to be able to say how new moms who are teenagers feel versus new moms who are older than thirty? If you just want to say something about how new moms feet, you could do three to four groups with various kinds of new moms. But if it is important to be able to compare and contrast perceptions of new moms based on age, you would complete at least three groups with each age category you select. It would get even more complicated if it were also important to know how morns of different races or ethnicities feel about the program. Or do you want to be able to talk about how dads feel about the program? Thinking about the final report may seem premature at this stage, but it really helps clarify the type of information needed from different types of people.
If you want to be able to compare and contrast how certain types of people talk about an issue, you must separate these people into different groups. For example, if we wanted to know how men's and women's opinions were similar or different on a certain issue, we would conduct three groups with men and three groups with women. That way, we can analyze across the men's groups, analyze across the women's groups, and then compare and contrast the findings. If we mixed men and women in the same groups, it would be much more difficult to analyze based on gender.
Also, when planning groups, we avoid mixing people who may feel they have different levels of expertise or power related to the issue. We want to create an environment where all participants feel comfortable saying what they think or feel. If there is a power differential, some participants may be reluctant to talk. When structuring groups, we probably wouldn't include supervisors and their employees in the same group. We probably wouldn't include teachers and students or teachers and parents in the same groups. We probably wouldn't mix seventh-grade boys with eleventh-grade boys. We are saying probably because our experience tells us that in most cases, it isn't a good idea, but we wouldn't say that we would never do these things. Again, the study and situation would dictate what we would do.
You can see that the number of groups could grow rapidly. Recently, a state agency was interested in finding out how people with diabetes from different communities of color felt about their diabetes, how they coped with the disease, and what they thought their health care providers could do to help them stay healthy. The agency conducted sixteen groups-four focus groups with each of the following types of people: African Americans, American Indians, Hispanics, and Southeast Asians. This decision came after considerable discussion about the pros and cons of additional subdivisions, such as urban versus rural, or for separating participants by country of origin, by language or dialect, by fluency in English, and so on. Each decision influenced resources needed, the timeline required, and the skills needed by the research team.
Also, consider the more traditional ways of dividing people into categories. Factors such as geographic location, age, gender, income, participation characteristics, family size, and employment status can be helpful ways to identify who should participate in focus groups. The decision of whom to involve must be related to the purpose of the study.
Nonprofit and service organizations typically have three categories of people who are of special importance to listen to-advisory groups, employees, and clients. Each of these can be subdivided into categories. These organizations often conduct focus groups with clients to find out how to design new programs or services but forget to ask frontline employees for their input about what it will take to make the program or service work.