In this week's seminar (Monday) we first presented the papers that we read and then discussed pros/cons of qualitative methods. We started off by briefly presenting our own papers, and then choosing one paper to present to the whole group. After some discussion we decided to pick my paper, The psychological functions of avatars and alt(s): A qualitative study, to present for the whole group. In last week's blog post I had pointed out that the skewed sample size (18 females and 6 males) was a weakness in the authors' method. When we discussed this in class we came to the conclusion that this might be because females are more likely play with more than one avatar (one of the questionnaire criteria). If that is the case, and females are over represented in playing with more than one avatar, than the selected sample group might be correct. If that is not the case than the sample size is skewed.
Next we chose to discuss the qualitative method of focus groups. We came to the conclusion that focus groups are beneficial when they encourage all the participates to speak freely and be inspired by each other. However, it is not uncommon for one person to "take charge" and speak more than others, while someone might sit completely quiet. The fact that not all participants get to express their opinions is one of the main drawback of focus groups. To avoid this problem it is better to use one on one interviews, where you "ensure" that the interviewee can speak more freely without being shy or interrupted.
After that we decided to try to evaluate the description of a focus group on the course's Wiki-page. I suggested that we should add that to conduct a focus group, you usually have to pay the participants with money, movie tickets, "fika" or something else. This is a problem because in bachelor's/master's level research there is usually no budget to pay the participants. That means that it could be hard for master's students to conduct focus groups. Another drawback is that even if you have a budget, the fact that you pay the participants could affect the outcome of the study. I think that there is reason to believe that people could behave differently if they are payed to do something compared to if they do it for free or out of pure interest.
To conclude, I think that this was a good seminar with some interesting discussion. I found it interesting that people had read papers with such different qualitative methods, ranging from interviews to diaries and narratives.
Hi Olle! I like what you wrote about focus group. But I would like to add that during the selection of the focus group participants researchers try to find people unfamiliar with each other, and that complicates the process of communication, because people can afraid and shy. But conducting of focus groups is very depends on the moderator, his professional skills. A good moderator will provide high involvement respondents to the discussion. Respondent will explain their points of view, and they will be forced to justify position that guarantees the spontaneity and sincerity of answers.
SvaraRaderaAbout drawbacks, in the seminar we also highlighted the bias to take in account when dealing with focus groups.
SvaraRaderaAs you can easily see (for instance in our seminars) in any group there are dynamics affecting the discussion such as dominant personalities among others and prejudices about the subject.
Hey guys. It would have been interesting to hear about the diaries and narratives, since I believe that my group only had qualitative research that was based on interviews and focus groups. On the topic of focus groups, it's true that some people could become shy and not speak. If you think about it, our seminars have been quite close to a "focus group", selecting "random" students from the course to talk about a specific subject and try to come to conclusions and new insight. Anyway, a good moderator is probably the key to a successful focus group session, do you agree?
SvaraRadera