Focus Groups

A focus group is an investigative tool for social research based on a structured and focused discussion with a small group of people, run by a facilitator (moderator) to generate qualitative data through a set of open-ended questions.

The focus group technique is a qualitative research methodology popularly used in social research in a wide range of sectors. A researcher uses a set of open-ended questions on a specific topic to generate qualitative data. The focus group is an efficient way of gathering data about particular opinions or attitudes by covering a large number of people in the same group. This entry explores the methodology and processes of focus groups as well as the analysis of data from focus group research.