Focus Groups: What are they?

The Breakdown

So Focus groups, I'm sure that we've all heard of them or maybe have been in one at some point but how effective can they be? All they seem to be is annoying and boring as a way of gathering information but as a way of getting opinions and the chance to talk about the product itself as well as being able to discuss further details about the product itself . It provides the opportunity for companies to get a better idea of how well the public will react to a new product or advert they're going to put out there, and you're able to get some better opinions from the idea than possibly from a questionnaire as you can actually see peoples expressions and body language.

The Good

So we know about what a focus group is so why is this a better preference than a questionnaire and as a good source of information for a project, well for a start as I mentioned earlier they are great for finding out more information as there's only so much a questionnaire can tell you. This comes from the fact that if you work with a focus group you can show a draft or demo of the production and gauge reactions from that but, it also gives the unique opportunity to speak with people to figure out their reasoning for the points given as generally with a questionnaire explanations are generally optional so the chance to get a more detailed response to what has been said is invaluable.

However it's not just the detail above questionnaires that makes this the superior but it also gives you a good point of reference when it comes to the development of the project, by this point it's good to have a demo or draft of what product your producing. Typically this would be when the product was till in its early development phase as it might not be as good within a week of the products end or launch but it's still useful to have as a marker for the making of the product.

  

The Bad

Now onto the bad, the first of whom is inherent bias. Now bias isn't a typical word used for things like research methods or within what's technically the preproduction planning stage but everything has it in one form or another so what about focus groups, how can they be bias? Well there's a few ways that I didn't even know, the first one is obvious when you think about and that's down to the fact of interest in the product itself.

When it comes to the interest of what's being made there's obviously a bit that can play a factor in this that would impact the results from the group as the people speaking have a pre-existing interest in what's being discussed whether it be good or negative there's always the chance that an opinion on the products being looked at making any results gained from it questionable.

Now a last thing to consider is the idea of getting opinions, it's the thought that a small number of opinions from this focus group represent the majority of people when that's not strictly true. In fact having a small sample size could potentially do more damage to the product than good hence why this technique is a follow-up on what has been changed based on what was given from a questionnaire and then convene a smaller group in order to get a final input. So this is an important point to consider that while similar to the topic I mentioned earlier in general but at this level it has a different outcome.

The Secondary

This is where it differs to the questionnaires and other types of research methods too, sure you can find evidence in the form of videos online for a focus group but they won't have the specifics that you're looking for so while you can get some secondary data, it won't give you any particulars that you need.

Instead the best form is to make up your own version of a focus group to get the best data possible, and it's not just at the start of a production either when putting an edit together there's a 'draft' video that can be put together based off of the material gathered earlier and then use that as a baseline for the group.

Reference List

OCR Business Studies for GCSE, 2nd edition (Paraphrase of Information)

Revise Btec National Creative Media Production-Revision Guide

The Pros and Cons of Focus Groups | Bloom Ads

The use of focus group discussion methodology: Insights from two decades of application in conservation - O.Nyumba - 2018 - Methods in Ecology and Evolution - Wiley Online Library paragraph of (179)