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Focus Groups: A New Tool for Qualitative Research

Article  in  Qualitative Sociology · September 1984

DOI: 10.1007/BF00987314

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Focus Groups: A New Tool for Qualitative Research

David L. Morgan
University of California, Riverside
M a r g a r e t T. Spanish
University of California, Riverside

ABSTRACT: Focus groups have received little a t t e n t i o n from sociologists, although

t h e y are a commonly used qualitative technique in m a r k e t research. The d a t a collected
in focus group sessions typically consist of tape-recorded group discussions a m o n g four
to ten participants who share their t h o u g h t s and experiences on a set of topics selected
by the researcher. We p r e s e n t a brief description of dimensions along which focus
groups vary in their format and relate these dimensions to an example from our own
focus groups, where t h e topic is how people think a b o u t the causes and prevention of
h e a r t attacks. We compare focus groups to i n f o r m a n t interviews and participant ob-
servation, and we describe their application, either as a self-contained data collection
strategy, or in conjunction with other qualitative and q u a n t i t a t i v e methods. We con-
clude with a discussion of the value of focus groups in triangulating data collection
from several different methods.

As a qualitative method for gathering data, focus groups bring

together several participants to discuss a topic of mutual interest to
themselves and the researcher. Researchers can use the audio tapes
and transcripts produced by focus groups either as a source of data in
and of themselves or as an adjunct to other forms of data collection.
Although we argue for the utility of focus groups as a unique and in-
dependent form of data collection, we are particularly impressed with
what they can add to other qualitative or quantitative data collection
strategies.
As a relatively new research tool for social scientists, focus groups
provide an opportunity to encourage triangulation in research {Denzin,
1978; Webb et al., 1981). The idea of approaching any problem through
multiple methods is one that most of us "honor in the breach." Indeed,
current social research is best divided into camps according to the
favored form of data collection: surveys vs. experiments vs. ob-
A n earlier version of this paper was presented in the Qualitative Methodology
Session organized by Malcolm Spector a t the 1983 meetings of t h e American
Sociological Association in Detroit, a n d we wish to t h a n k Prof. Spector for his com-
m e n t s during t h a t session. We would also like to t h a n k Pamela G. Smith for originally
bringing the focus group technique to our a t t e n t i o n a n d Susan Wladaver-Morgan for
her valuable c o m m e n t s and editorial suggestions, as well as the editors and anonymous
reviewers at Qualitative Sociology. Requests for reprints m a y be addressed to: Depart-
m e n t of Sociology, University of California, Riverside, CA 92521.

QualitativeSociology.7{3LFall 1984 253 V 1984by Human SciencesPress

254 QUALITATIVE SOCIOLOGY

servations vs. interviews. Focus groups not only give us access to cer-
tain kinds of qualitative phenomena that are poorly studied with other
methods, b u t also represent an important tool for breaking down
narrow methodological barriers. As a qualitative technique, focus
groups both add to the available range of techniques in this area and
provide yet another chance to demonstrate to more quantitatively-
oriented researchers the ways in which their work could be improved
b y using an appropriate qualitative technique.
The advantages of triangulation are not, however, limited to studies
that bridge the qualitative-quantitative boundary. Within the realm of
qualitative methods, focus groups have much to offer as an adjunct to
other qualitative techniques, such as informant interviewing and par-
ticipant observation. Here as well, there are several standards of good
practice that are too often notable by their absence, and we hope that
our introduction of this new technique will serve to improve the overall
practice of qualitative methods.

Focus Groups: What and How

Two aspects of focus groups have particular relevance: the origin of

focus group techniques in market research and the dimensions along
which different t y p e s of focus groups can vary. To move from what
focus groups are to how one might use them, we present a concrete
example of focus groups in operation, based on our own research into
health beliefs about heart attacks.
We will not be presenting a "cookbook" description of how to do
focus groups; this is available in m a n y textbooks on market research
(Boyd et al., 1981; Smith, 1972; Wells, 1974}. We hasten to note,
however, that we are not wedded to the concept of focus groups that is
prevalent within market research. Instead, we see the focus group ap-
proach as a fairly general technique that could easily have been
derived from any number of sources. Because focus groups have been
most commonly applied in market research, we begin with a brief
review of that work, but our ultimate goal is to describe versions
of focus groups that can be specifically useful to social science
researchers.
What we borrow from market research is a definition of the focus
group as a video- or audio-taped small group discussion that explores
topics selected b y the researcher and is typically timed to last no more
than two hours. Focus group participants are usually led through the
 Focus Groups 255

discussion by a moderator who is often the researcher. The data collec-

ted from focus group sessions are typically analyzed qualitatively; in
market research this means that they are seen as provisional, serving
as a preliminary step to survey research.
Calder (1977} has identified three different types of focus groups
within market research, grouping them according to the kind of
knowledge that is sought: exploratory, clinical, and phenomenological.
Exploratory focus groups serve primarily as a means of generating
hypotheses; clinical groups provide insights into participants' un-
conscious motivations; and phenomenological groups give the re-
searcher access to the participants' common sense conceptions and
everyday explanations. Calder argues that the way the group is con-
ducted and the ways the data are interpreted depend on which of these
three goals the researcher is pursuing; unfortunately, market research
has generated very few reflexive studies on focus groups.
One recent study (Fern, 1982) has a t t e m p t e d to summarize the
dimensions along which focus groups vary and to assess the dif-
ferences that these dimensions make in the number and quality of
ideas generated in focus groups. Fern compared focus groups of dif-
ferent sizes, moderated vs. unmoderated focus groups, and groups
composed of strangers vs. acquaintances. The current "tricks of the
trade" in market research would call for a group of at least eight, with
a professionally trained moderator, and a set of participants who were
all strangers to one another. With regard to group size, Fern found
that the number of ideas generated did not double as group size in-
creased from four to eight, and that the ideas produced in groups were
not necessarily superior in quality to those produced in individual in-
terviews. He also found that moderated focus groups m a y have some
advantages to unmoderated focus groups and that groups of strangers
m a y be preferable to groups of acquaintances, but in neither case were
the differences large. The important conclusion that we draw from
Fern's work is that there is nothing sacred (or even necessarily correct)
about the current way that focus groups are conducted in market
research. Overall, we see Fern's results as pointing toward a set of
dimensions that the researcher can use to decide which form of focus
group is best suited to his or her research questions. This flexibility
was one of the things that originally attracted us to focus groups.
Our decision to conduct focus groups began with a general interest
in the role that informal socialization plays in a person's acquisition of
information about foreseeable life problems. We were particularly in-
terested in interactions in which people tried to make sense of each
256 QUALITATIVE SOCIOLOGY

others' vicarious experiences with heart attacks. What interested us

was the fact that, while heart attacks happen to specific victims, they
have importance and meaning for a broader network of the victim's
friends and acquaintances. Similar kinds of discussions have been
noted in anthropological work on gossip within social networks {Ep-
stein, 1969}. We were considering various ways of creating groups to
discuss heart attacks, when fate, in the form of our own networks
stepped in: a friend with a background in market research pointed out
that we were in the process of re-inventing the focus group.
What would the reader have seen if he or she had visited one of our
focus groups? In one end of a standard seminar room there are four or
five persons comfortably seated around a low, circular coffee table. On
the table is a water pitcher and glasses, plus a small assortment of
snack foods; hanging down over the center of the table is a
microphone. In the other end of the room, the two researchers are
seated at a separate table. At the beginning of the session, and again
after a brief break in the middle, the researchers give instructions to
the participants; during the bulk of the session, the researchers are
b u s y managing the recording equipment and making notes to aid in
the later transciption of the tapes. Each of the two halves of the
discussion takes 15-20 minutes, with additional time for question-
naires, instructions, and open discussion between participants and
researchers after the focus group. The total time is about one and one-
half hours.
Using the dimensions defined b y Fern, our groups are small, largely
unmoderated, and without elimination of acquaintances. These would
be highly deviant focus groups b y market research standards, b u t they
are optimal for our goal of reproducing something like informal
discussions about heart attacks. Our style as "moderators" deserves
some mention at this point. Although we were explicitly available to
answer questions, we told groups that they were unlikely to need our
assistance and to try to work things out among themselves. Our ex-
perience with an initial pre-test showed this to be feasible, but by our
second actual group we realized that not all groups were fully capable
of self-management. The main difficulties were straying from the topic
and coming to a dead end in the discussion--precisely the sorts of
things that a skilled moderator handles in a market research focus
group. We were, however, able to resolve these problems b y men-
tioning their possible occurrence, along with some suggested
solutions, in the initial instructions. Thus we told groups that getting
off the subject could happen, but, " I t ' s seldom a problem because
 Focus Groups 257

what usually happens is that one of you will call attention to it and the
group can refocus on our topic." Similarly, we warned them of blank
spots in the conversation and suggested that they could restart by
reviewing our general instructions. This strategy might be termed the
construction of self-fulfilling prophecies, and we found it to be almost
completely effective, allowing us to be minimally involved in
moderating the actual discussions.
Our participants were recruited from lists of "returning s t u d e n t s " in
order to obtain an age range from 35-50. We felt that students in this
age group would be likely to have more experience with informal
discussions of our chosen topic. Participants were first contacted by
telephone, and anyone who had had a heart attack or expressed reser-
vations about discussing this topic was automatically excluded from
the recruitment; those who volunteered to participate received $5.00
for their time. Altogether, we ran nine focus groups with a total of 40
participants, plus an additional pre-test and one special group where
we invited participants in our earlier groups to return for a second
round of discussions.
Upon arriving at the seminar room, each participant was asked to
complete a questionnaire giving us some idea of their thoughts about
heart attacks. Particularly important for their later discussions was a
portion of the questionnaire that asked them to select someone they
knew or had heard about who had had a heart attack and to write a
brief account of this heart attack. In introducing the actual focus
group discussions to the participants, we emphasized that we were not
interested in testing their knowledge or comparing it to what medical
science knew about this topic. We also explained that very little was
known about how people who had not had heart attacks thought about
this topic, and that we were interested in learning from them by
listening to them discuss their ideas and experiences. In this respect,
our goals are similar to Calder's (1977} "phenomenological approach."
To describe the actual topic of our sessions, we informed the par-
ticipants that the discussion would be done in two parts, and that the
topic for the first half was, "Who has heart attacks and why?" To start
this discussion, we asked them to share with each other the stories
that they had written in the questionnaire; we explained that this
would give everyone a chance to speak. We also told them that we were
interested in hearing as many stories as possible, and that if they hit a
blank spot in their conversation, they could fill it b y offering a new
story or asking questions about someone else's story that they had
already heard.
258 QUALITATIVE SOCIOLOGY

Participants were told that this first half of the discussion would
last about fifteen minutes, but we made no effort to precisely time the
length of the discussion. Instead, we watched for a natural point at
which to conclude or interrupt the session. After a brief break par-
ticipants were given similar instructions for a second discussion. This
time, we requested that they pursue the topic, " W h a t kinds of things
cause and what kinds of things prevent heart attacks?" After ap-
proximately fifteen minutes of discussion on this second topic, the par-
ticipants filled out another questionnaire and were paid. The session
concluded with a "debriefing" in which we talked with participants
about their reactions to the discussions; no unfavorable reactions were
reported in any of the groups. 1
Based on what we had heard in the groups, we designed a sub-
stantive coding system for our transcripts, using mentions of risk fac-
tors related to heart attacks. After compiling a list of such factors
le.g., smoking, diet, exercise, extreme exertion, high blood pressure,
Type A personality, stressful life events, family history, etc.}, we
tallied all mentions of risk factors in each group, separating them ac-
cording to whether they occurred in a story about a heart attack vic-
tim or in general discussion (for a preliminary report of these results,
see Morgan and Spanish, 1983}. In addition to coding risk factors, we
compared the course of the discussions across groups, looking for fac-
tors which led them to move, first from simple exchanges of experience
to a t t e m p t s at understanding these experiences, and then to some
general conclusions based on this shared knowledge.

Focus Groups: W h y

As a relatively new qualitative technique, what do focus groups have

to offer over other, more familiar means of observation? In this section
we consider both the strengths and limitations of .focus groups as a
technique, especially in comparison to other means of gathering
qualitative data. We begin with a discussion of our own research.
Nearly all observational research is constructed around some core
setting, organization, or social group, but the events that we wished to
observe would be relatively rare within any group over a reasonable
time span. In other words, informal discussions of friends' and
acquaintances' heart attacks would be very difficult to locate in par-
ticipant observation. Although some good work has been done in
studying the recovery of heart attack victims (Speedling, 1982} who
 Focus Groups 259

can be located through hospital settings, this is clearly very different

from what we wished to observe.
Certainly information could have been gathered through informant
interviewing with our participants, but it would have taken several
rounds of preliminary interviews just to develop a useful guide far ex-
ploring the topic with them. In addition, although we have no actual
data, we believe that such retrospective accounts would pay con-
siderably more attention to the participants' current interpretations of
the heart attacks they had encountered, rather than to the processes
by which these interpretations had been reached. Compare the dif-
ference between asking informants to discuss people they can remem-
ber who have had heart attacks, versus having them recount
discussions they have had after someone had a heart attack. The focus
groups not only provided information about the participants'
vicarious experience of heart attacks, but also showed us what hap-
pened when people took differing individual experiences and at-
tempted to make collective sense of them.
Although our discussions lacked the "Oh my God, not Harry"
quality of a lunch-table group first hearing about one of their number's
heart attack, we feel that we were able to collect far more of this
material than participant observation would have allowed and to en-
counter more information on the role of informal interaction than in-
formant interviewing would have allowed. (We hasten to add that the
population we used--returning students--was very comfortable with
the interaction format that we required of them.}
The major advantage of focus groups is that they offer the chance to
observe participants engaging in interaction that is concentrated on
attitudes and experiences which are of interest to the researcher. This
advantage stands out in a comparison to informant interviewing and
participant observation. In informant interviewing, one sacrifices the
ability to observe participants interacting in exchange for the ability
to pursue their attitudes and experiences in greater detail. The result
may be an irreducible uncertainty about how participants would
discuss these issues among themselves. In participant observation,
the trade-off is between the greater ability to observe naturally oc-
curring interaction and the lesser ability to pursue one's own topics of
interest. Even when a broad range of interactions among participants
can be observed, the researcher may still only rarely have access to
discussions of the attitudes and experiences that she or he is interested
in. Of course, most qualitative research involves a combination of in-
formant interviewing and participant observation, and while this
260 QUALITATIVE SOCIOLOGY

tends to minimize the limitations present in either technique alone, it

still m a y not substitute for the opportunity to observe concentrated
sets of focused interactions.
Some years ago, Howard Becker 11958} introduced two basic criteria
for classifying data gathered from informants: whether they were
directed by the researcher or volunteered b y the informant, and
whether they were given to the researcher in isolation or conveyed as
part of a group in which both researcher and informant were par-
ticipants. When applying these dimensions, one finds that participant
observation typically involves information that is volunteered in
groups, while interviewing typically involves directed statements
gathered in isolation. B y comparison, focus groups fall somewhere be-
tween these two poles: they produce information which was directed
by the researcher, b u t collected within groups of informants.
In essence, the strengths of focus groups come from a compromise
between the strengths found in other qualitative methods. Like par-
ticipant observation, they allow access to a process that qualitative
researchers are often centrally interested in: interaction. Like in-depth
interviewing, they allow access to the content that we are often in-
terested in: the attitudes and experiences of our informants. As a com-
promise, focus groups are neither as strong as participant observation
on the naturalistic observation of interaction, nor as strong as in-
terviewing on the direct probing of informant knowledge, but they do a
better job of combining these two goals than either of the other two
techniques. We believe this is a useful combination, and one which, for
some types of research questions, m a y represent the best of both
worlds.
If the major advantage of focus groups is the opportunity to observe
interactions on a selected set of attitudes and experiences, then the
data that such interaction can provide are worth reviewing in detail.
Based on our experience with the focus groups on heart attacks, we
provide the following, admittedly somewhat arbitrary, list of things
worth seeing in interaction.
First, and so obvious that it is easy to overlook, is the opportunity to
observe what kinds of things participants choose to present in the
groups. In our case, we were also interested in things that were not
presented. In particular, we wanted to compare the risk factors that
participants discussed to those that medical practitioners would con-
sider to be important. Further, among the wide range of things that
participants do choose to present at one point or another, examination
of a full stream of interaction allows one to see which issues are
 Focus Groups 261

followed in later discussion, and which are dropped. In our work, this
has led to a distinction between heart attack risk factors that par-
ticipants think are important, and those that they consider in-
teresting. Participants find factors such as cigarette smoking to be im-
portant, and will mention them in connection with specific cases, but
the low level of interest in this risk factor is evident by its lower
frequency in later discussions. Mentions of stress and coping reverse
this pattern, occurring only sporadically in stories about specific
people who have had heart attacks, but growing in interest to the point
where they dominate the later portions of several of our groups.
Second, among the components that make up interaction, we have
been particularly impressed with the importance of question asking
and answering. Even a simple request for more information can imply
that the person being questioned is unaware of the relevance of the
omitted information. Questioning can also indicate large differences in
the frames of reference that two participants are using, and replies can
show surprisingly rapid shifts in frame of reference. For example, if
someone is telling a story about a relative's heart attack and they are
asked the question, "How old were they when this happened?", the
result may be a simple reply {"She was in her sixties.") or an extended
discussion of the significance of heart attacks in old age ("We all have
to die of something, and sometimes it just happens to be a heart at-
tack."). Questioning can also be thought of as a specific case of a more
general aspect of interaction--interruptions. Although questions are a
relatively non-disruptive form of interruption, even a polite question
can serve as a signal that others have heard enough of what the in-
terrupted participant is saying at that point in the discussion.
Third, certain phenomena are almost entirely limited to interaction,
including requesting or providing comparisons. In our heart attack
study, we found that comparisons are especially important for moving
discussions from exchanges of experience into a more explicit con-
sideration of risk factors related to heart attacks. Because com-
parisons typically rely on differences or similarities in patterns of risk
factors, they are particularly useful for uncovering the implicit
theories that participants encounter in others' stories about heart at-
tacks. This can be accomplished by using the comparison to highlight
areas of agreement and/or disagreement; the result is a discussion of
the relative importance of a risk factor or set of risk factors across any
number of specific eases. As this process proceeds, new stories are of-
ten introduced for the sole purpose of providing comparisons. Even-
tually, it is the process of comparing risk factors that becomes
262 QUALITATIVE SOCIOLOGY

dominant, and the specific story-based information disappears almost

entirely from the discussion.
Finally, interaction can involve activities which do not exist at the
individual level such as a t t e m p t s to resolve incompatibilities, or create
shared models. Participants frequently spend the final portions of
their time in our groups discussing very broad issues, and trying to
gauge the amount of consensus on these issues. A common example in-
volves trying to assess the relative importance of individual factors
such as dieting or exercise, in comparison to uncontrollable factors
such as limitations due to human physiology or personal heredity. In
some cases this leads to mutually acceptable general theories about
how specific risk factors combine to produce overall levels of risk, and
in other cases there is little more than a final agreement to disagree.
Either outcome is inherently a group product.
Having described some of the strengths of focus groups, we would
like to conclude this section b y mentioning some of their limitations.
The two chief disadvantages of focus groups are the unnatural setting
in which they are conducted and the researcher's relative lack of con-
trol over the course of the discussions. Given the first of these
limitations, we do not see focus groups as a substitute for more
naturalistic forms of qualitative data collection such as participant ob-
servation. In addition, the simple fact that focus groups are created
and recruited by researchers imposes serious limitations on the nature
of the interactions to be observed. Nor are focus groups a simple sub-
stitute for in-depth informant interviews. If the researcher is willing to
further restrict the naturalism of the focus group setting, an actively
involved moderator would have more of the interviewer's ability to
define and pursue issues within the group, b u t even this has its limits.
In particular, parallel research from social psychology and evaluations
of focus groups themselves tFern, 1982} show that participants in
these groups produce fewer ideas per person than in equivalent in-
dividual interviews.
In sum, we see focus groups as well suited for the observation of
some phenomena, b u t we also recognize that all techniques have their
advantages and limitations. Obviously, there are many instances in
which focus groups would be an inappropriate approach, but this is
j u s t as true of any other technique. Our goal here is to improve the
overall range of practice by providing another option in the effort to
match research questions to appropriate data collection strategies.
 Focus Groups 263

Focus Groups: When and Where

In this section we describe the possible applications of focus groups.

We begin with a discussion of focus groups as a self-contained data-
collection strategy, but devote most of our attention to the uses of
focus groups in conjunction with surveys, experiments, and other
qualitative methods.

Self-contained focus groups

In its simplest form the self-contained focus group is analogous to

the sorts of research undertaken in any qualitative study. There are,
however, at least two other things that could be done with self-
contained focus groups: the composition of the groups could be
systematically varied, as could the specific topics that groups discuss.
To illustrate, we would like to give an example of some focus groups
that were designed around the discussion of different topics among dif-
ferent types of participants.
Linda Kaboolian, William Gamson (1983), and their coworkers at the
University of Michigan are currently involved in a project that uses
focus groups as part of a broader program of research concerning the
ways in which people think about politics. These researchers use a ver-
sion of "snowball sampling" to assemble four to six acquaintances at
the home of one of the participants where a facilitator leads groups
with the intention of recreating (rather than simulating) natually oc-
curring conversations. These groups involve two types of participants,
each connected to the Detroit auto industry: assembly line workers
and lower-level managers. Both types of groups discuss the same four
topics, chosen to represent differing levels of personal relevance to the
participants: troubled industry, affirmative action, nuclear power, and
the Arab-Israeli conflict. The goal here is to compare ways of thinking
about politics across the four issues and between the two types of par-
ticipants by using the recordings and transcripts from the focus
groups.
As this example shows, using focus groups as a self-contained
method allows some intriguing "design" possibilities. Clearly many
things can be done with regard to forming and conducting focus
groups. At this point the boundaries of what can be done with focus
groups as a principal means of data collection are relatively open, and
we hope that this flexibility will be one of the attributes that draws
more researchers into this area.
264 QUALITATIVE SOCIOLOGY

Another opportunity offered by focus groups is also highlighted in

this example: the chance to study attitudes and opinions in a
qualitative fashion. To date, qualitative researchers have left this
topic to quantitative approaches, largely of the survey research
variety. Even if we begin with a recognition that the opportunity to ac-
tually observe social behavior is one of the chief virtues of qualitative
approaches, it is still worth our effort to collect further information
about the motivations and beliefs that guide this behavior, We thus
recommend the qualitative study of attitudes and opinions as one
topic area for which self-contained focus groups are particularly well
suited.

In conjunction with survey research

The most obvious advantage for survey researchers is the op-

portunity to use focus groups to develop question-wordings that
correspond to the respondents' own approach to a topic. This ad-
vantage may, however, be considerably less important than the op-
portunity to ensure that respondents' own thoughts and theories
about a topic receive fair weight in comparison to hypotheses derived
from prior theory and research. The point here is not so much the at-
t e m p t to discover naive theories as it is the danger of ignoring them.
We can provide an example from one of our colleagues who used focus
groups prior to survey research on how couples divide housework.
In this case, couples were assembled to discuss issues surrounding
their allocation of household duties. The participants provided ample
validation of many of the ideas that sociologists typically apply in this
area, but they also raised one consideration that the researchers had
not thought to include. That is, how dirty or exhausting was the work
outside the home: if one person had a job which made housework par-
ticularly t~ing or obnoxious, that affected the household division of
labor. While this is not earth-shattering news, it is important to see
what happens if it is omitted from the battery of questions in-
vestigating this topic: the answers for any couple that uses such a per-
spective will be systematically distorted.
Note also that this research could have been expanded as a self-con-
tained data collection within the larger research program. For in-
stance, if the researcher scheduled several couples to participate in two
separate focus groups during a single session, the groups could consist
of matched couples; men and women who are not partners; or only men
and only women. Would the opinions that members of one sex express
among their peers be different if members of the opposite
 Focus Groups 265

sex were present? Would the presence or absence of a spouse affect the
opinions one expresses? These are interesting questions in their own
right, and the answers might well affect the format in which the sur-
vey interviews are conducted. The point that we want to make here~ as
well as in other contexts where focus groups are used in conjunction
with another data collection strategy, is that proper attention to the
focus groups not only increases the information that they provide for
the other technique, b u t also has the potential of generating useful
data in its own right.

In conjunction with experiments

We wish to discuss, if only briefly, the use of focus groups in con-

junction with experiments because social psychologists have recently
shown an interest in qualitative approaches, and we feel that focus
groups have great potential for encouraging them to move in this
direction. Taylor and Fiske (1981) have recently pointed out that most
experimental social psychology is very good at detailing what would
happen if people acted in certain ways, b u t much weaker when it comes
to saying if they do in fact ever act in those ways {i.e. the perennial
problem of external validity). As an antidote, they suggest a two-stage
research process whereby qualitative studies are first used to in-
vestigate naturally occurring activities, and then experiments are un-
dertaken using the insights gained from the observational work (see
also Taylor et al., 1983). Given the similarity between focus groups
and methods such as group discussions that are already in use within
social psychology, focus groups are a particularly good mechanism for
undertaking this kind of work. 2 This is especially true when the
phenomena under experimental investigation involve interaction. As
with surveys, however, we feel that the main advantage of using focus
groups is not to be found in simply making the later stages of the
research process a more realistic reflection of participants' ways of ex-
pressing themselves--they are even more useful for alerting re-
searchers to the limits that too much abstract theorizing m a y have
placed on their own vision of social activity.

In conjunction with other qualitative methods

Earlier we compared focus groups with informant interviewing and

participant observation; now we suggest ways that focus groups could
266 QUALITATIVE SOCIOLOGY

be used to increase the effectiveness of either of these techniques. In

particular, focus groups can be usefully conducted before interviewing
and after participant observation. We wish to note at the onset
however, that we do n o t see focus groups as compensating for
inadequacies in either of these techniques. Instead we advocate a
general philosophy of using multiple methods, and present these
examples as a way of showing how focus groups, as a newer technique,
can be introduced into current research programs.
As a preliminary to interviewing, focus groups offer the researcher a
chance to develop an interview schedule which is grounded in par-
ticipant understanding of the topic. Several years ago, Becker and
Geer {1957} advocated the use of participant observation in con-
junction with interviewing for similar reasons; however, their presen-
tation produced a debate because it was seen as claiming that in-
terviews done alone were inadequate {Trow, 1957; Becker and Geer,
1958}, a position that we explicitly disavow. The issue is not the
superiority of one method or the other, b u t the potential advantages of
a well-chosen combination of methods. As a practical issue, the time
and effort required by participant observation make it prohibitively
difficult to use as a preliminary data collection strategy in most cir-
cumstances. Focus groups, however, require efforts in participant
recruitment, transcript preparation, etc., that are already part of the
research process in informant interviewing. Further, the same set of
informants m a y participate in both the focus groups and in later in-
dividual interviews in which issues raised in the discussion can be pur-
sued at greater length, one-to-one. Finally, systematic differences
could appear between the information gathered in focus groups and in
individual interviews, and we believe that the practitioners of both
techniques would profit from an explicit exploration of any such dif-
ferences.
With regard to participant observation, we wish to emphasize the
use of follow-up focus groups for comparisons between one's ob-
servations and what might have been experienced if the observations
had been conducted in another setting. We thus see focus groups as
one means of implementing the " c o n s t a n t comparative method of
qualitative analysis" advocated b y Glaser and Strauss {1967}. Glaser
and Strauss have argued quite convincingly that theoretical analysis
is improved by extending an interpretation of a previously observed
setting to predictions or questions about other systematically dif-
ferent settings. Unfortunately, very few such continuing programs of
participant observation have been undertaken. Focus groups are
 Focus Groups 267

hardly a substitute for a series of comparative observational studies,

b u t they are an improvement over research which is conducted and
described in terms of a single setting. Once the researcher has selected
a number of factors that seem to determine events in the observed set-
ting, he or she can assemble a set of comparative focus groups from
settings which are systematically different with regard to the selected
factors. Such focus groups can also alert the researcher to important
factors that are either unobservable or absent in the studied setting.
Here, as elsewhere, our overall point is that a combination of methods
is often the most effective w a y to extend one's insights into one's
research questions.
Overall, we wish to re-emphasize our earlier statement that we are
not trying to assert the superiority of focus groups over other
qualitative methods. For someone who is not already trained in
qualitative methods, however, focus groups do offer some advantages:
they can be conducted in a relatively brief span of time (very short if
one is willing to listen to tapes rather than read transcripts}, and, if un-
moderated focus groups are acceptable, they can be conducted by
assistants who possess only minimal expertise. Of course these are
merely technical advantages, and the real value of focus groups, as
with any qualitative method, comes from the researcher's exposure to
the participants' own thoughts and means of self-expression.

Conclusions

In this section we wish to return to one of the larger goals that we

set out in our opening remarks: the introduction of focus groups as an
opportunity to advocate triangulation of methods in social science
research, and more specifically the combination of several methods
within a single research program. On the one hand, we feel it is par-
ticularly important to offer some of the strengths of qualitative
methods to our quantitatively oriented colleagues. On the other hand,
we feel that arguments over the relative superiority of different
qualitative methods do less to advance our own practice than
equivalent efforts to find maximally enlightening combinations of
qualitative approaches to data.
Let us look first at the advantages of focus groups in combination
with quantitative methods. Even those who do not accept qualitative
methods as the equal of their own favored techniques are likely to
acknowledge that better communication with "respondents" or "sub-
268 QUALITATIVE SOCIOLOGY

jects" would improve the knowledge that was gained through these
techniques. This is a good argument in favor of focus groups, and for
qualitative methods in general, but we feel there are more important
lessons to be learned. Thus we have tried to emphasize insights that go
beyond improving question wording and experimental realism; in fact,
we fear that such uses of focus groups are similar to a market re-
searcher listening to taped discussions in hopes of finding the raw
material for a new slogan or jingle. Instead, we have emphasized the
value of coming into direct contact with the points of view of the in-
tended objects of the research, or as Calder (1977:360) puts it, "ex-
periencing their experiences." We feel quite strongly that such in-
sights do much to strengthen quantitative approaches to research, and
we look forward to the day when quantitative researchers who use
focus groups will claim that their work is superior to that of their
colleagues who fail to employ qualitative techniques.
While we would be pleased if quantitatively oriented researchers
began to adopt focus groups (especially if they do so in the spirit that
we attempt to convey), we would be even more pleased if they were
adopted by practitioners of other qualitative methods. As we noted at
the beginning of this paper, there are several standards of good prac-
tice that are too often honored in the breach. In particular, just
because qualitative work is manifestly better grounded than quan-
titative work, it does not follow that it is sufficiently grounded.
Similarly, although most qualitative researchers are aware of tools
such as Glaser and Strauss' constant comparative method, we still
clearly need to be prodded to use them. We are not about to argue that
focus groups are superior at either of these tasks, only that their in-
troduction as qualitative methods provides a forum for raising the
issues. It will take some time before focus groups establish a clear
territory within the realm of qualitative methods, but using them in
combination with other qualitative methods is the quickest way to ac-
complish this, as well as the best way to test some of our assertions
about the potential superiority of the combinations of these methods.
Whether or not focus groups stimulate combined methods of data
collection, either within qualitative techniques or across the boundary
between qualitative and quantitative techniques, our own experiences
(Morgan and Spanish, 1983) make us confident of their merit as a new
means of collecting social science data. There is really only one test for
such methodological merit: does the technique provide new or im-
proved means of asking and answering sociological questions? In our
 Focus Groups 269

r e s e a r c h , t h e c o n c e n t r a t e d o b s e r v a t i o n s of i n t e r a c t i o n t h a t f o c u s
g r o u p s p r o v i d e h a v e m e t t h i s t e s t , a n d we l o o k f o r w a r d t o s i m i l a r
r e s p o n s e s from other social scientists.

Notes

1. The single most common reaction in the debriefing was a request to learn more
about the subject of heart attacks or about general aspects of caring for one's
health. Rather than answering from our own limited medical knowledge, we met this
request by suggesting a series of "self-care" oriented readings which would allow
participants to pursue their own interests.
2. It is worth noting, however, that social psychologists have most often used group
discussions as a form of "experimental manipulation" rather than as a source of
substantive data.

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