Applied Project: Focus Group Analysis

Focus groups can be used in my Applied Project, and in general, to gain a more accurate idea of how people feel or think. Bryman and Bell (2015) point out that when an interviewer only has one person to interview, that person may say untruths, knowingly or unknowingly, and in a group setting others are more likely to call that person out. More than one person allows individuals to possibly dig deeper in how or why they feel or think a certain way because people tend to feed off of each other and can bring discussions out of others. I may gather a bit more how followership is viewed, dealt with, and ways to improve the understanding and actions of various followers.
Another positive for focus groups is that issues the interview is not aware

of or thinks to discuss can be brought up. Even though the group is unstructured, a focus group forces the interviewer to let go of more control and what the group finds to hold the most significance is discovered (Bryman & Bell, 2015). This is often seen in classrooms settings when a few people call each other out or move the topic on to what fires them up. A chapter discussing a broad subject could be narrowed down, and the class can get to the meat of the issue.
In my Project, a solid focus group might also be a way to gather multiple viewpoints in a short time. Having seven people at a table for an hour could give me richer information than interviewing those same people over a week for 30 to 45 minutes each. At the same time, people can become pretty heated in some discussions depending on the mix of individuals or talk over each other. I’d even go so far as to say that sometimes individuals’ ideas are stifled in a heated mix of group members. In the classroom, there has been plenty of times where I sat quietly because a few students could become almost aggressive in their ideas. At the same time, it gives people a chance to share various perspectives, so a good moderator can move the discussion along, encourage quiet people to share, and use the talkers to get people worked up and talking.