INTRODUCTION TO
FOCUS GROUPS
By Lizzette Rojas, PhD
and Flordeliz Serpa, PhD
Non-Profit Evaluation &
Resource Center, Inc.
(NPERCI)
Lizzette Rojas, PhD
Dr. Rojas has over seventeen years of
experience in the area of evaluation
research of health, education, and
social services programs. She is the
Chief Operating Officer of Non-Profit
Evaluation & Resource Center, Inc.
Flordeliz Serpa, PhD
Dr. Serpa is an accomplished
researcher and program evaluator.
She has applied her skills to
organizations in both the public
and private sectors. Dr. Serpa is
the Chief Executive Officer of
Non-Profit Evaluation & Resource
Center, Inc.
Learning Objectives
 Learn
the appropriate reasons
for conducting focus groups
 Learn to plan, develop, and
moderate focus groups
 Learn to analyze and report
focus groups results
What Are Focus Groups?
Group
interviews
Research method
Focused efforts at data
gathering
Group discussions
Basic Uses For Focus Groups
Problem
identification
Planning
Implementation
Assessment
Avoid Focus Groups When:
 Imply
commitments you cannot
keep
 Participants are not comfortable
with each other
 Topic is not appropriate for the
participants
 Project requires statistical data
Planning Focus Groups
Planning
Recruiting
Moderating
Analyzing
and Reporting
The Questions:
Guiding Principles
 Conversational
 Clear, brief, jargon-free
 Seek
feedback from
professionals
 Allow sufficient time
 Develop questioning skills
Questioning Techniques
 Topic
Guide - is a list of topics
or issues to be pursued in the
focus group.
 Questioning Route - is a
sequence of questions in
complete, conversational
sentences.
Moderating Focus Groups:
Guiding Principles
 Be
interested
in participants
 Be ready to
hear
unpleasant
views
 You
cannot
moderate all
groups
 Use your
unique
talents
Before The Focus Group
Prepare
yourself
mentally
Assemble the equipment
Arrange the room
During The Focus Group
 Register
participants
 Make small
talk
 Introduce the
focus group
 Ask
questions
 Anticipate the
flow
 Control your
reactions
During The Focus Group
 Be
 Summarize
the
comfortable
with the
pause
 Probe as
needed
 Listen
discussion
 Get the people
to leave
 Debrief with
assistant
moderator
Analyzing And Reporting Results
 Transcript-Based Analysis
 Tape-Based Analysis
 Note-Based Analysis
 Memory-Based Analysis
Suggested Readings
 Developing Focus Group
Research by Barbour and
Kitzinger, Sage Publications,
1999
 The Handbook for Focus
Group Research by Thomas L.
Greenbaum, Sage Publications,
1997