How to Compare Interviews & Focus Groups

Focus groups should allow for comfort and ease of speech.

Focus group interviews allow companies and interest groups the ability to understand a segment of the population's views on a topic, item or product. A successful focus group yields a good deal of new information on what your segment wants. However, some people find it troublesome to compare the different focus group interviews, and mine them for relevant information.

Instructions

1. Organize the interviews by population segment, if you did not do this during the interview process. For example, you may want to divide your focus group interviews for "perceptions of teen smoking" by gender and parental status. This segments your interviews into women without children, women with children, men without children and men with children.

2. Determine which information received from the focus group is "critical." For example, in a focus group for an organization that helps combat teen smoking, you determine that the following information holds a critical status: the level of passion each group has for ending teen smoking; how each group most likes to participate in ending teen smoking; and the perceived prevalence of teen smoking per group.

3. Scale each piece of critical information on a 1 to 10 or 1 to 100 scale. Often, scaling the information during the interview allows you to more rationally determine the score when analyzing and comparing information. You ask each person in the group to determine, on a scale of 1 to 100, their perception of the prevalence of teen smoking, for instance. You find that the average of women with children say 27, meaning they think that 27 percent of teens smoke regularly. Men without children, on the other hand, say 74, meaning that they think that 74 percnet of teens smoke.

   If you must quantify the information you gathered, Creighton University warns against the halo/horn effect, where your scoring is influenced by your perception of the group. If you know that you sometimes consider men without children less concerned in public affairs, make sure that the scalar rating you give to men without children does not reflect this bias. (Focus group information, though, should not be quantified, as your sampling is too small and the information is inherently qualitative.)

4. Note any anomalies for research. For example, during research you find that while women with children think that 27 percent of teens smoke, the scores from women with adult-aged children see this number as significantly higher.

5. Graph and chart your information. For purposes of comparison, use bar graphs to show the differences among the different population groups comprising your total information set.

   Remember that the specificity with which you record your results influences the outcome of the interviews and focus groups. During the allotted time for the focus group, try to get as much information as possible without coercion or rushing.

Tips & Warnings

• The more detailed the preparation, the more easily you can analyze and compare the information from focus groups, according to North Carolina State University.

References

• University of Minnesota, Department of Communication Studies: Designing and Conducting Focus Group Interviews
• North Carolina State University: Interviews and Focus Groups
• Creighton University: Errors to Avoid in Performance Evaluations