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Tag Archives: interview
Implications of Focus Group Candor Principles
Here are the implications to the three principals discussed in yesterday’s post concerning Focus Group Candor.
Ownership:
Let the respondents lead whenever possible. Stay away from driving the topic with the guideline and avoid “Now I want to talk about…” whenever possible. Internalize your client’s learning agenda and use respondents’ comments as natural transitions: “You mentioned ________, let’s talk more about that.”
Timing:
Strike while the opinion is fresh, before the respondent has a chance to review and edit a point of view. Look for a respondent’s nonverbal cues of readiness to contribute, and call on them as quickly as possible.
Engagement:
Drive the pace and you drive involvement. Consider that a group with ten respondents means a chance to talk only every two minutes if each person talks 10 seconds at a turn. Rapid sequences of short answers from many people means everyone is engaged. Long narrative responses create down time for others in the group, resulting in more “polished”, less candid input.
Creating Focus Group Candor
“Are They Telling Me The Truth?”
Written by David Forbes, Ph.D. & Gar Roper, Ph.D.
Perhaps the very biggest concern when trying to learn about the marketplace through focus group research is the issue of truth. Asking consumers to tell us about their thoughts, feelings and actions in the day to day real world is always an invitation to have the consumer tell us stories — stories about how they wished things were, or stories that present themselves in the most favorable, socially desirable light. This challenge to focus group learning is indeed a significant one, requiring the focus group moderator to have an explicit strategic framework for eliciting candor from focus group respondents.
The challenge of focus group candor is met with a scientific psychological approach that is based upon understanding how people think and talk while presenting opinions. Three principles are key to this approach: Ownership, Timing, Engagement
