The Focus Group (FG) has been actually employed by marketing, and is becoming importanct also in other areas; such as, education, health, management, decision-making, and information systems, among others. Depending on the research objective, the Focus Group can be used alone or in conjunction with other methods. The results obtained from the FG application are particularly effective in supplyi...

This paper critically evaluates methodological issues relevant to using focus groups in media reception analyses. Focus groups have become a popular research method in recent years for social researchers (Morgan, 1993), and, more recently, for politicians and political parties (Kitzinger and Barbour, 1999). However, they have been used as far back as the 1920s for market research, and Robert Me...

Despite the abundance of published material on conducting focus groups, scant specific information exists on how to analyze focus group data in social science research. Thus, the authors provide a new qualitative framework for collecting and analyzing focus group data. First, they identify types of data that can be collected during focus groups. Second, they identify the qualitative data analys...

The interconnections of family transformation, childrearing and fertility behaviour are explored. Data were generated through nine focus groups organized among the Ogu and content analyzed. The analysis reveals that although the family system is still largely dominated by extended structure, the strong traditional kinship ties have begun to undergo serious strain. Child fostering and other mean...

Historically, managers in livestock production have focused on production management; however, as operations have grown they have spent more time managing employees. Increased time spent overseeing employees brings additional risks and challenges, and, hence, a greater need for human resource management (HRM) skills. This study investigated HRM practices in pork production and analyzed their ri...

Acknowledgements We gratefully acknowledge the support of our funders – the Nuffield Foundation – and the members of our project advisory group. The Nuffield Foundation is an endowed charitable trust that aims to improve social wellbeing in the widest sense. It funds research and innovation in education and social policy and also works to build capacity in education, science and social science ...

This paper describes a study comparing the perceived effectiveness of “real” and “virtual” dissections in a first-year human biology course. Data were collected from enrolled students using surveys and focus groups within an action-research methodology. The findings suggested that there is little difference between the two types of instruction in terms of learning the structure and function of ...