Facilitating Focus Groups

COURSE CONTENT

Introduction

What is a focus group? Qualitative research and how it

works; its strengths and weaknesses; how focus groups fit in

to the wider view of research.

Organising a focus group

Selecting delegates. Selecting a venue. Payment. The length

of a session. Recording the session. Clarifying your aims.

Designing a discussion guide and questions. Establishing

ground rules and expectations. Running the group. Closing

the session.

Delegates work in groups to plan and develop content for

focus groups.

What can go wrong?

How people behave in groups. Top tips for dealing with

those people every facilitator dreads: the silent; the dominant;

the garrulous who go off at a tangent; and so on.

Listen up!

Remaining non-judgemental. Using open questions. Using

closed questions.

Delegates work in pairs to explore the impact of listening and

non-listening, as well as body language.

Practical role play

Each participant takes a a turn running a session with the

other delegates as participants. The range of themes for the

focus groups is very wide. Each session is interspersed with group discussion and feedback from the course facilitator.

Aims of the course

Delegates gain the skills needed to facilitate

focus groups so as to avoid influencing the

outcomes. They develop the necessary

listening and questioning skills. They are

shown how to handle difficult people.

Delegates learn how to:

• Organise and set up a focus group

• Listen actively

• Ask effective questions

• Manage discussions so that everyone has

their say and no one person dominates

• Keep discussions on track without biasing

the results

• Interpret results from a focus group

• Be a facilitator through practical role play