This was great. I got together with half a dozen friends who all work with children in different roles to discuss the ways in which they engage with a class and how as the adult they make the best first impression. We went on to talk about how first impressions really make a difference to the control you then have over that particular group of children.
The focus group had lots of positive points...
Good qualitative data source.
I found it great to be able to knock ideas off of each other.
The conversation took on lots of avenues that I wouldn't of particularly thought to go down during a conventional interview.
As we all knew each other we all relaxed and spoke openly not only revealing our positive experiences but discussing where at times it had all gone wrong.
It seemed just enough people to keep the conversation focused. As the leader I felt that I had good control of the conversation and keeping it on track.
I learnt a lot of general information that I can use to compare amongst everything individuals had to say.
The down side...
Information gathered was very generic. The focus group would need to be a lot more geared to the inquiry question being investigated. And gathering enough willing volunteers that have the right skill set and experience could prove hard.
The ethical dimension would certainly come in to play here. Candidates would need to be very carefully selected to allow a fair representation and to gather overall unbiased data.
Difficult to gather quantitative data.
Was hard to know when to draw the conversation to a close.
The biggest issue for me here was the insider researcher issue. I felt a lot of bias to my own experiences. I almost feel that I needed to keep my mouth shut. To just lead the group rather than participate. As the leader I felt that anything I added to the conversation led to too heavy a focus being placed on my input. The group looked at me like maybe I knew best as it was my inquiry.
I think that in order to learn from others that at times I need to just be a detached researcher. To then after the fact analyse what I have learnt from others against my own personal experiences.
I really feel that this is going to prove a useful tool for my inquiry and look forward to getting together a more specific focus group.
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