HLSS500 Week 5 Qualitative Research Methods Discussion What are two or three assumptions that are made specific to qualitative research? Be specific in you

HLSS500 Week 5 Qualitative Research Methods Discussion What are two or three assumptions that are made specific to qualitative research? Be specific in your description of each one. What are some additional questions that you have about the different qualitative methods that are out there? Instructions: Fully utilize the materials that have been provided to you in order to support your response. Your initial post should be at least 500 words. Introduction
In: Focus Groups as Qualitative Research
By: David L. Morgan
Pub. Date: 2011
Access Date: April 28, 2019
Publishing Company: SAGE Publications, Inc.
City: Thousand Oaks
Print ISBN: 9780761903437
Online ISBN: 9781412984287
DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781412984287
Print pages: 2-7
© 1997 SAGE Publications, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
This PDF has been generated from SAGE Research Methods. Please note that the pagination of the
online version will vary from the pagination of the print book.
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SAGE Research Methods
1997 SAGE Publications, Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
Introduction
In a church meeting room, a group of widows compare their experiences. One woman complains
that other people wanted her to stop grieving in 6 months, but that it really takes much longer.
Another woman produces murmurs of agreement throughout the groups when she adds that the
second year is sometimes harder than the first (Morgan, 1989).
In a living room, a group of working people discuss their views of major political topics such
as affirmative action, nuclear power, and the Arab-Israeli conflict. One striking element of their
conversations is the number of personal connections that they make to these issues, even when
they react to examples of how the mass media portray these topics (Gamson, 1992).
In a rural village in Thailand, two groups, one of young men and one of young women, discuss the
number of children they want to have and how this has changed since their parents’ day. Elsewhere
in the same village, groups from the older generation discuss how they feel about this issue and how
things have changed for their children. Later, the researcher analyzes tapes of these discussions
to compare the thoughts and experiences of men and women in the older and younger generation
(Knodel, Havanon, & Pramualratana, 1984).
In Chicago, a group of young African American mothers talk about what it is like to be on welfare.
They all agree that it is a hard life, but to hear them tell it they have what it takes to get along despite
their obvious problems. Still, as the discussion wears on, their stories are more and more about how
hard it is and less about their own ability to rise above their circumstances (Jarrett, 1993).
Each of these examples describes a piece of research using focus groups. As a form of qualitative research,
focus groups are basically group interviews, although not in the sense of an alternation between a
researcher’s questions and the research participants’ responses. Instead, the reliance is on interaction within
the group, based on topics that are supplied by the researcher who typically takes the role of a moderator.
The hallmark of focus groups is their explicit use of group interaction to produce data and insights that would
be less accessible without the interaction found in a group.
Only a decade ago, focus groups were almost unknown to social scientists. Now, a review of on-line
databases (Morgan, 1996) indicates that research using focus groups is appearing in academic journals at
the rate of more than 100 articles per year. Their use in applied research outside academic settings is even
more extensive. This rapid growth is partly due to social scientists’ ability to borrow from an established set
of practices in marketing research, in which focus groups have been the dominant form of qualitative data
collection (e.g., Goldman & MacDonald, 1987; Greenbaum, 1993; Hayes & Tatham, 1989). The other major
factor driving the growth of focus groups has been social scientists’ ability to adapt this technique to our own
purposes (e.g., Krueger, 1994; Morgan, 1993a; Stewart & Shamdasani, 1990; Vaughn, Schumm, & Sinagub,
1996). The recent history of focus groups in the social sciences has thus been one of both considerable
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borrowing and considerable innovation.
Uses for Focus Groups
The on-line search referred to previously revealed three basic uses for focus groups in current social science
research. First, they are used as a self-contained method in studies in which they serve as the principal
source of data. Second, they are used as a supplementary source of data in studies that rely on some other
primary method such as a survey. Third, they are used in multimethod studies that combine two or more
means of gathering data in which no one primary method determines the use of the others.
In the self-contained uses, focus groups serve as the primary means of collecting qualitative data, just as
participant observation or individual interviewing can serve as a primary means of gathering data. Using focus
groups in this manner requires a careful matching of the goals of the research with the data that the focus
groups can produce to meet these goals. Accordingly, the use of focus groups as a self-contained method
often leads to an emphasis on research design.
In supplementary uses of focus groups, the group discussions often serve as a source of preliminary data in
a primarily quantitative study. For example, they can be used to generate survey questionnaires or to develop
the content of applied programs and interventions. The focus groups could also serve as a source of followup data to assist the primary method. For instance, they might be used to pursue poorly understood survey
results or to evaluate the outcome of a program or intervention. In these supplementary uses of focus groups,
the groups must be set up and conducted in ways that maximize their value for the primary method.
In multimethod uses, focus groups typically add to the data that are gathered through other qualitative
methods, such as participant observation and individual interviews. The model here is clearly ethnography,
which has traditionally involved a blend of observation and interviewing. Bringing focus groups into this
combination simply means using group as well as individual interviews (e.g., Willis, 1977). In these combined
uses of qualitative methods, the goal is to use each method so that it contributes something unique to the
researcher’s understanding of the phenomenon under study. The relative place of focus groups within this
mix of methods would depend on the researcher’s data needs, the opportunities and limitations of the field
setting, and so on.
Focus groups can thus serve a number of different purposes. Used in a self-contained fashion, they can be
the basis for a complete study. Used with other methods, they can either supplement another primary method
or combine with other qualitative methods in a true partnership. This flexible range of uses for focus groups
in the social sciences contrasts strongly with marketing applications in which focus groups have historically
served as a preliminary step to be followed by quantitative research (McQuarrie, 1996). Given the strong
tradition of qualitative research in the social sciences, researchers in these fields have understandably taken
a broader approach to the uses of focus groups. Even so, the options we have currently developed certainly
do not exhaust the possible uses of focus groups, and there are undoubtedly many other creative uses of
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focus groups still waiting to be discovered.
Focus Groups in Historical Perspective
Focus groups are not really new. Within the social sciences, Bogardus’s (1926) description of group interviews
is among the earliest published work. Group interviews also played a notable part in applied social research
programs during World War II, including efforts to examine the persuasiveness of propaganda efforts and
the effectiveness of training materials for the troops (Merton & Kendall, 1946), as well as studies on factors
that affected the productivity of work groups (Thompson & Demerath, 1952). It was these wartime efforts
that produced the first detailed discussions of group interviews, which evolved from a mimeographed manual
to a recently reissued book (Merton, Fiske, & Kendall, 1990). At about the same time, focus groups were
transplanted into marketing research by Paul Lazarsfeld and others. Indeed, it was Lazarsfeld, a colleague of
Merton’s at Columbia, whose program of research on audience response to radio broadcasts first introduced
Merton to group interviews (Merton et al., 1990; Rogers, 1994). Although his fellow sociologists have
emphasized Lazarsfeld’s contributions to quantitative research, marketers have always given equal time to
his qualitative work—a balance that was important to Lazarsfeld himself (see Lazarsfeld, 1972), as was his
dual involvement in academics and marketing.
Given such auspicious origins, why did focus groups virtually disappear from the social sciences during the
next three decades? One likely reason is that Merton et al. (1990) explicitly limited the uses of “focused
interviews” to gauging reaction stimulus materials, such as films, radio broadcasts, and written manuals.
Furthermore, neither Merton nor his colleagues published much research that used group interviews. For
example, The Student Physician (Merton, Reader, & Kendall, 1957) made extensive use of tabulations from
survey data and quoted liberally from diaries that the students kept, but the authors made only passing
mention of the fact that they also used group interviews. During this same time, work with groups became
closely associated with small group decision making in social psychology, whereas most of the development
of qualitative methods centered on participant observation and individual interviewing (Becker & Greer,
1957). The basic reason that focus groups did not take hold earlier thus appears to be neglect, both by the
technique’s original proponents, who turned to other pursuits, and by its potential users, who concentrated on
other methods.
Even so, various versions of the group interview have been a frequent, if incidental, feature of qualitative
research. Examples would include Irwin’s (1970) interviews with groups of prisoners in The Felon,
Hochschild’s (1983) group interviews with stewardesses in The Managed Heart, or Gubrium’s (1987)
observations of a support group in Old Timers and Alzheimer’s. In most of these cases, group interviews
were used primarily for convenience—either groups allowed more individuals to be reached at once or groups
were where the participants were most likely to be located. Perhaps because of this emphasis on simple
convenience, group interviewing was not systematically developed as a research technique in the social
sciences until recently.
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In the early 1980s, applied demographers (e.g., Folch-Lyon, de la Macorra, & Schearer, 1981) began to
use focus groups as a way to understand the knowledge, attitudes, and practices that influenced the use
of contraception. At about the same time, British communication researchers began using focus groups to
examine how audience members interpreted media messages (Lunt & Livingstone, 1996). With the advent
of the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome epidemic, researchers (e.g., Joseph et al., 1984) used focus
groups as a first step to overcome their limited knowledge about the gay community. Meanwhile, other
health educators (e.g., Basch, 1987) were improving the effectiveness of intervention programs by holding
group discussions with members of their target audience. Oral history provided other applications (Ingersoll
& Ingersoll, 1987). A landmark occurred in 1987 with the first publication of book-length texts on focus groups
by marketers, several of which are now in second editions (Goldman & McDonald, 1987; Greenbaum, 1993;
Templeton, 1994). The social sciences were not far behind. In 1988, the first edition of this book appeared
along with the first edition of Krueger’s text (1994), which fueled the interest in focus groups as a tool
in evaluation research. Given the existence of these resources, as well as subsequent books (Stewart &
Shamdasani, 1990; Vaughn et al., 1996) and special issues of journals (Carey, 1995; Knodel, 1995), focus
groups have become an increasingly well-known method for collecting qualitative data.
Focus Groups and Group Interviews
One question that has accompanied the rising use of group interviews has been whether the label “focus
groups” fits all these different applications. According to one school of thought (Frey & Fontana, 1989; Khan
& Manderson, 1992), we need to develop a typology of different kinds of group interviews, which would define
focus groups as one specific form of group interview. The “exclusive approach” emphasizes the need to
determine which forms of group interview are or are not focus groups. My own preference (Morgan, 1996) is
for a more inclusive approach that broadly defines focus groups as a research technique that collects data
through group interaction on a topic determined by the researcher. In essence, it is the researcher’s interest
that provides the focus, whereas the data themselves come from the group interaction.
One reason for favoring an inclusive approach is that the exclusive approaches do not really exclude very
much. Other than focus groups, the primary categories of group interviews in the existing typologies are things
that are manifestly different from focus groups. On the one hand, there are nominal groups and Delphi groups
(Stewart & Shamdasani, 1990), which do not involve actual group interaction. On the other hand, there is
the observation of naturally occurring groups, which typically do not involve the researcher in determining the
topic of discussion. Thus, little is gained by excluding these categories of data collection because they already
fall outside the broad definition of focus groups offered here.
Among the more specific criteria that could be used to distinguish focus groups from other types of group
interviews, both Frey and Fontana (1989) and Khan and Manderson (1992) assert that focus groups are more
formal. In particular, they argue that focus groups are likely to involve inviting participants to the discussion
and they also stress the distinctive role of the moderator. Although there is no doubt that group interviews
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vary along a continuum from more formally structured interaction to more informal gatherings, I do not believe
it is possible to draw a line between formal and informal group interviews in a way that defines some as focus
groups and others as something else. Instead, I find it more useful to think that the degree of formal structure
in a focus group is a decision that the research makes according to the specific purposes of the research
project. In particular, the use of either a more formal or a less formal approach will depend on the researcher’s
goals, the nature of the research setting, and the likely reaction of the participants to the research topic.
Among the other criteria that have been offered as distinguishing features of focus groups are their size
and the use of specialized facilities for the interview (McQuarrie, 1996). Again, however, these supposedly
exclusive criteria are mostly a matter of degree. Who is to say when a group is too large or too small to be
called a focus group or when a setting is too casual to qualify? Rather than generate pointless debates about
what is or is not a focus group, I prefer to treat focus groups as a “broad umbrella” or “big tent” that can include
many different variations. Of course, this approach requires researchers to make choices about doing focus
groups one way rather than another. Fortunately, this need to make explicit decisions about data collection
strategies is a familiar concern to social scientists, and it comes under the heading of “research design.” As
social scientists have gained increasing experience with focus groups, we also have produced insights into
the situations in which different research designs are either more or less likely to be effective (e.g., Krueger,
1993; Morgan, 1992a, 1995).
Overview of the Remainder of This Book
The ultimate goal of this book is to provide the motivated reader with the wherewithal to conduct effective
focus group research. Although a slim volume such as this cannot produce “instant experts,” it can provide
a basis for growth in an area that resembles many things we already do. Much of what goes into conducting
focus groups touches on the same issues that arise in any effort to collect qualitative data. Thus, a continuing
theme of this book is that those of us who become focus group researchers are simply occupying a natural
niche within the well-defined territory of qualitative research methodology.
The next chapter compares focus groups to the two most common means of gathering qualitative
data—individual interviewing and participant observation—and uses this comparison to locate the strengths
and weaknesses of focus groups. Chapter 3 presents a variety of different applications for focus groups as a
research technique, both as a self-contained means of collecting data and in combination with other methods.
Chapter 4 covers the technical aspects involved in planning and designing focus groups. That chapter and
the next provide a thorough treatment of the practical issues involved in focus groups, and Chapter 5 presents
the fundamental options in conducting focus groups. Chapter 6 examines a variety of additional possibilities
that go beyond the basic format. The concluding chapter returns to the theme of focus groups as a qualitative
method to look at the potential contributions of this new method to social science research.
http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781412984287.n1
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Focus Groups as Qualitative Research
The Qualitative Report
Volume 13 | Number 4
Article 2
12-1-2008
Qualitative Case Study Methodology: Study
Design and Implementation for Novice
Researchers
Pamela Baxter
McMaster University, baxterp@mcmaster.ca
Susan Jack
McMaster University, jacksm@mcmaster.ca
Follow this and additional works at: https://nsuworks.nova.edu/tqr
Part of the Quantitative, Qualitative, Comparative, and Historical Methodologies Commons, and
the Social Statistics Commons
Recommended APA Citation
Baxter, P., & Jack, S. (2008). Qualitative Case Study Methodology: Study Design and Implementation for Novice Researchers . The
Qualitative Report, 13(4), 544-559. Retrieved from https://nsuworks.nova.edu/tqr/vol13/iss4/2
This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the The Qualitative Report at NSUWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in The
Qualitative Report by an authorized administrator of NSUWorks. For more information, please contact nsuworks@nova.edu.
Qualitative Case Study Methodology: Study Design and Implementation
for Novice Researchers
Abstract
Qualitative case study methodology provides tools for researchers to study complex phenomena within their
contexts. When the approach is applied correctly, it becomes a valuable method for health science research to
develop theory, evaluate programs, and develop interventions. The purpose of this paper is to guide the novice
researcher in identifying the key elements for designing and implementing qualitative case study research
projects. An overview of the types of case study designs is provided along with general recommendations for
writing the research questions, developing propositions, determining the “case” under study, binding the case
and a discussion of data sources and triangulation. To facilitate application of these principles, clear examples
of research questions, study propositions and the different types of case st…
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