Moderating Focus Groups

Richard A. Krueger

• Publisher: SAGE Publications, Inc
• Year: 1997
• Print ISBN: 9780761908210
• eBook ISBN: 9781506320601
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Social Science Research & Methodology
• Index: Social Sciences

Moderating Focus Groups is indispensable for those who want to improve their focus group moderating skills. Based on years of experience in moderating and training others to moderate, Richard A. Krueger offers scores of tips and sound advice on how to become a master in leading focus groups. The book is an easy-to-read overview of critical skills needed by moderators, the various approaches that successful moderators use, and strategies for handling difficult situations. Rookie moderators will find this book is an invaluable guide, and veteran moderators will discover tips and strategies for honing their skills.

VOLUME 4

1

About This Book

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“I found it to be a challenge. On the one hand, There are some considerations. It looks so easy.” When focus group moderating is done well, it looks very easy. The moderator is relaxed, in control, friendly, having fun, and getting participants to tell all about themselves. Because experts make moderating look so easy, some rookie moderators have been surprised by the complexity and difficulty of the task.

This book is intended to help you inventory your present moderating skills and suggest strategies for how you might fine tune your ability to conduct focus group interviews. “What do I do well? What do I need to improve?” These are questions we hear moderators ask themselves—and unfortunately there is limited opportunity for feedback.

Effective moderating requires a complex set of skills. Each person who attempts to moderate brings richness and uniqueness to the experience. Over the past decade, we have taught hundreds of people to moderate. But, in fact, we’ve found that often we were students, and the novice moderators taught us new and varied strategies of communication. It is difficult to script exact strategies. There just is not one right way to conduct a successful focus group. We’ve tried to capture this spirit in this book and found it to be a challenge. On one hand, there are some considerations that are critical (friendliness, a permissive approach, a nonthreatening environment), but individuals show these in a variety of ways. If we overly emphasize the critical components, we foster a rigid attitude. If we overly emphasize the individual approaches, we foster a wishy-washy, anything-goes approach. We’ve tried to steer a middle course.

We have purposely opted to describe the interviewer’s role by using the term moderator. This term highlights a specific function of the interviewer—that of moderating or guiding the discussion. The term interviewer tends to convey a more limited impression of two-way communication between an interviewer and an interviewee. By contrast, the focus group affords the opportunity for multiple interactions, not only between the interviewer and the respondent but among all participants in the group. The focus group is not a collection of simultaneous individual interviews but rather a group discussion where the conversation flows easily with nurturing by the moderator.

We’re sharing ideas and suggestions as we would offer them to a friend—a friend who is about to conduct a focus group. When sharing with friends, our intent is to accomplish the desired results in a pragmatic manner. We offer strategies that we’ve found to be helpful in conducting focus groups, but we also want you to adapt these strategies based on your personal skills and situation.

An assumption inherent in this book is that you probably won’t read the volume from beginning to end. We’ve found that many researchers regularly skip sections, go back and forth to topics of interest, and skim other chapters. We’ve tried to organize the book so that you can quickly find your areas of concern and just maybe discover some interesting information that you hadn’t anticipated along the way. We would feel successful if you find more than you anticipated in this book.

VOLUME 4

2

Guiding Principles of Moderating

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Overview

Be Interested in the Participants—
Show Positive Regard
Be a Moderator, Not a Participant
Be Ready to Hear Unpleasant Views
You Can’t Moderate All Groups
Use Your Unique Talents

Be Interested in the Participants—Show Positive Regard

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The Moderator Must Truly Believe That Participants Have Wisdom

Moderator respect for participants is one of the most influential factors affecting the quality of focus group results. The moderator must truly believe that participants have valuable wisdom, no matter what their level of education, experience, or background.

Indeed, participants may have limited knowledge, hold opposing values to those of the researchers, or have seemingly fuzzy logic, but still the moderator listens attentively and with sensitivity.

After moderating three or four focus groups, the moderator will have heard the topic discussed in a variety of ways, and many concerns and key ideas will have been expressed several times. At this point, the information is old stuff to the moderator, but it still deserves the respect and active listening that was present the first time it was heard. Lack of respect quickly telegraphs to participants and essentially shuts down meaningful communication. Why should participants share their personal feelings when the moderator is arrogant? The moderator must truly believe that the participants have wisdom and insights that need to be uncovered.

Empathy and positive regard are critical qualities for an effective moderator. The moderator truly believes that those gathered for the discussion have unique wisdom and valuable insights. This attitude must permeate the entire focus group environment. Here’s a meditation developed by Jack Kornfield (1993, p. 82) that reflects the spirit of moderating focus groups. We hope that those planning to moderate find it beneficial.

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Meditation: Seeing All Beings as Enlightened

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Picture or imagine that this earth is filled with Buddhas, that every single being you encounter is enlightened, except one—yourself! Imagine that they are all here to teach you. All those you encounter are acting as they do solely for your benefit, to provide just the teachings and difficulties you need to awaken.

Sense what lessons they offer to you. Inwardly thank them for this. Throughout a day or a week continue to develop the image of enlightened teachers all around you. Notice how it changes your whole perspective on life.

—Jack Kornfield

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One benefit of conducting focus groups is the insight and wisdom that accrue to the moderators. Trevor Collier said it well in The Secret Life of Moderators, an address to the 1996 Qualitative Research Consultants Association annual conference in Montreal.

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Be Open to Learning

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What a lot our respondents give us! For one thing, talking to them in groups, triads and one on ones has taught me to appreciate the language and longings of generations other than mine. I’m delighted by the energy and restless impatience of the nineteen year old roofer with his baseball cap on backwards. I’m delighted by his pseudo–homey hip talk . . . his super cool “at—ti—tude” and—as I get to know him better—moved by his dewy-eyed idealism.

Equally, who wouldn’t be entranced by the reminiscences of elderly people, or enjoy spending time with a group of middle-aged female chicken pluckers. Women with an earthy, street-smart appreciation of life, who pounce on every possible double entendre. Two hours with them feels like an evening out at the neighborhood bar.

Then too I feel this job has also put me personally in touch with the regional variations of our countries. Ten years ago most of the studies I did were around Toronto. Now, thanks to clients who have realized that the heart of Canada does not beat in Skydome, and there is more to America than a trip to Buffalo, most of the time I work in far flung places. It’s a revelation to see how topography, climate and local culture have molded the Personalities of people in various parts of our continent and shaped their outlooks on life. And in what other kind of job can one share the stories of oil workers in Edmonton or Houston on Tuesday and those of dock hands in Halifax or San Diego on Thursday.

But most of all, doing qualitative research allows us to share, by talking to men and women who are different from us, other visions of the world. And further, to better appreciate the subtleties and complexities of both genders. In my own case, when I began moderating I was, more or less, at ease conducting focus groups with women, and felt fine talking with white collar guys “like me.” But when it came to talking with a group of tattooed, hard-nosed, longhaired, fifty-beers-a-week drinkers, some of whom had bounced around just this side of the law for years, I was terrified. I felt they would spot me for a fraud.

Eventually, I started to relate. I found things in common with the 24 year old from a public housing project who has never had a real job, and the truck driver who has only been getting home on weekends for twenty years now. There is a directness of feeling in men like that which, when it is given voice, is both moving and humbling.

I have learned more about women too. I have put myself in their shoes so often that I feel I can better understand the fear of a woman reentering the work force next Monday after spending the past ten years “just raising a family” or of trying to maintain a sense of self worth when those around her are telling her that what she is doing is of little value. Or the creepy feeling she gets Walking into a donut shop filled with men. While I can never live a woman’s life, I can at least try to explain it to my, mostly male, clients.

I can describe the personal growth gifts that I have been given by this job secure in the knowledge that most of you—my colleagues—have been given the same. Despite the cynicism that we occasionally feel when confronted with professional respondents, for the most part those we talk with are decent people who let us freely into their lives. And, in return, we relate fiercely to them.

After all, that is why every moderator worth his or her salt feels shock and revulsion when observers, safe behind their one-way mirror, belittle or make fun of the people who show, in two hours of friendly conversation, that they are only guilty of being themselves.

—Trevor Collier

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Be a Moderator, Not a Participant

The moderator role is to guide the discussion and listen to what’s said but not to participate, share views, engage in discussion, or shape the outcome of the group interview. It’s easy for the moderator to cross the line and get actively involved in the group.

There are degrees of moderator involvement that range from subtle body language to actively sharing opinions and experiences, and even to leading participants to take action. Some moderators wrongly assume that sharing their personal opinions will foster greater sharing among participants. Unfortunately, this tactic tends to cue participants about what’s wa...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Detailed Table of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction to the Focus Group Kit
• 1. About This Book
• 2. Guiding Principles of Moderating
• 3. What You Need to Do: Before the Focus Group
• 4. What You Need to Do: During the Focus Group
• 5. Selecting the Moderator
• 6. Personal Qualities of Moderators
• 7. Roles of Moderators
• 8. Problems Encountered by Moderators
• 9. People Problems
• 10. Assistant Moderator Responsibilities
• 11. Taking Notes and Recording the Discussion
• 12. The Rapid Focus Group
• 13. Rate Yourself: Check Sheets for Moderating
• 14. Improving Your Moderating Skills
• 15. Teaching Others to Moderate
• References
• Index to This Volume
• Index to the Focus Group Kit
• About the Author