Considerations for and Lessons Learned from Online, Synchronous Focus Groups

Abstract

New technologies continue to push the boundaries of collaboration, bringing together geographically dispersed people into a single, virtual space. Combined with budget pressures, the availability of high-speed Internet and online communication platforms encourage opportunities to use virtual focus groups.Virtual, or online, focus groups may be either asynchronous or synchronous (Mann and Stewart 2001). In asynchronous focus groups, participants access a site to answer moderator-posed questions or respond to other participants' comments. Participants in synchronous focus groups interact with the moderator and each other "live."Despite conditions favoring their use, comparatively little literature exists on using online focus groups for social science research, particularly webinar-type synchronous focus groups. Mayer and colleagues (2006a; 2006b) conducted five such groups with caregivers and providers of pediatric patients and found that participants in the chat-based groups were able to share their experiences and express emotions by using emoticons available in the conferencing system. Participants' comfort with the messaging technology varied, and some required assistance with technical problems such as logging on or using the software.Underhill and Olmsted (2003) compared transcripts from face-to-face focus groups and chat-based, online focus groups and found no significant differences in participation rates, the number of unique ideas generated, the total number of relevant comments, or participant satisfaction. However, more off-topic comments were generated in the online groups.What literature exists on this topic originated nearly a decade ago, and technological innovations affecting this data collection method evolve rapidly.In this paper, we draw from our experiences on two recent studies to describe considerations for using online, synchronous focus groups as well as lessons learned from implementing them.

‘When my autism broke’: A qualitative study spotlighting autistic voices on menopause

“…In consideration of the sensitivity of the topic and the needs of a cohort who might struggle with face-to-face or telephone interaction, the focus group occurred online. In addition to convenience and cost, online focus groups boast several advantages for qualitative research (Bouchard, 2016; Forrestal et al, 2018; Reisner et al, 2018; Wilkerson et al, 2014; Woodyatt et al, 2016). According to these authors, the anonymity of an online forum decreases social influence and facilitates disclosure around sensitive topics.…”

Design Considerations for Live Video Survey Interviews

“…Far more methodological research will be needed to verify when and how video survey interviewing is viable for which populations, and which features have which effects (see, e.g., Feuer andSchober 2015, 2019;Sun and Conrad 2019). It will be important to evaluate when and how findings and advice from qualitative video interviewing research, for example on participant recruitment and data quality (e.g., Forrestal, D'Angelo, and Vogel 2015;Janghorban, Roudsari, and Taghipour 2014;Lobe 2017), apply to structured interviews to collect quantitative data, particularly as video and communication technology use have so radically changed. We see attending to the design considerations e.g., https://electionstudies.org/announcement-to-the-american-national-election-studies-anes-user-community and https://the-sra.org.uk/ common/Uploaded files/Research Matters Magazine/sra-research-matters-june-2020-edition.pdf listed here-and documenting the effects of different design choices-as complementing evolving guidance on the use of live video in other domains of research (e.g., Marhefka, Lockhart, and Turner 2020) and as critical to discovering which implementations of video interviewing lead to the best data quality, cost effectiveness, and the best respondent experience.…”

“It's been a good time to reflect on…who isn't worth keeping around”: COVID-19, adolescent relationship maintenance and implications for health education

“…We conducted two sets of focus groups: three in the beginning of June 2020 ( n = 25) and two at the end of November 2020 ( n = 13). We chose to conduct online focus groups to accommodate public health restrictions around in-person gatherings, and because online focus groups are ideal for exploring sensitive subject matter due to increased options for anonymity and fewer barriers to participation (Forrestal et al , 2015). The first set of focus groups occurred at a time when all provinces and territories in Canada had been under varying degrees of lockdown; all schooling was suspended.…”