Sage Research Methods

Focus Groups as Qualitative Research

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Author: David L. Morgan

Pub. Date: 2011
Product: Sage Research Methods
DOI: https://doi.org/10.4135/9781412984287
Methods: Focus groups, Moderators, Participant observation
Keywords: moderator, discussion groups, group discussion, social science, group composition, heart attack
Disciplines: Anthropology, Business and Management, Criminology and Criminal Justice, Communication
and Media Studies, Counseling and Psychotherapy, Economics, Education, Geography, Health, History,
Marketing, Nursing, Political Science and International Relations, Psychology, Social Policy and Public Policy,
Social Work, Sociology
Access Date: May 30, 2025
Publisher: SAGE Publications, Inc.
City: Thousand Oaks
Online ISBN: 9781412984287

© 2011 SAGE Publications, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Front Matter

• Copyright
• Series Editors' Introduction
• Preface

Chapters

• Introduction
• Focus Groups As A Qualitative Method
• The Uses of Focus Groups
• Planning and Research Design for Focus Groups
• Conducting and Analyzing Focus Groups
• Additional Possibilities
• Conclusions

Back Matter

• References
• About the Author

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Copyright

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Series Editors' Introduction

Only a decade ago, focus groups were virtually unknown to social scientists. Now, their use in academic
settings as well as outside is vast and ever-growing. In this extensively revised and updated edition of Focus
Groups as Qualitative Research, David Morgan provides an excellent guide to focus groups. He carefully
considers their many uses in the research enterprise and discusses effective planning and research design
for focus groups. Finally, he provides concrete and practical advice on how to conduct and analyze focus
groups and considers additional possibilities.

One of the best-selling titles in the Qualitative Research Methods series, this revision will be of value to
qualitative researchers in every academic discipline as well as those in nonacademic settings.

JohnVan MaanenPeter K.ManningMarc L.Miller

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Preface

Much has changed during the 10 years since I began work on the first edition of this book. The most rewarding
of these changes is the fact that focus groups are now a much more widely practiced research method
within the social sciences. Indeed, this increasing experience with focus groups in the social sciences is the
primary reason for this new edition. Ten years ago, nearly all the recent writing on focus groups came from
marketing research. Today, there is a sizable literature about focus groups in anthropology, communication
studies, education, evaluation, nursing, political science, psychology, public health, sociology, and many other
disciplines. Indeed, more than half the references cited in this book were published since the previous edition.

During those 10 years, I too have been busy. In that time, I have conducted more than 20 research projects
involving more than-100 focus groups, as well as leading numerous training sessions and workshops.
Thinking back over these past few years makes me realize how much I owe to those who were there at the
beginning: Pamela G. Smith, who first drew my attention to focus groups, and Margaret Spanish, who both
assisted me with and coauthored my first work in this field. Of course, I would never have been prepared
to take advantage of those opportunities without the graduate training that I received from Bill Gamson in
working with groups and from the late David Street in qualitative methods.

It takes a team of people working together to make a focus group's project succeed. It has taken many more
to help focus groups become better known. I have been fortunate to have good company in sharing these
tasks. One particularly pleasant aspect of my work on focus groups has been the collaboration that Richard
Krueger and I have developed. Although Dick and I had never met when Sage published our two books on
focus groups in 1988, we have since had many chances to talk and work together in ways that continue to be
enlightening to me. Over the years, I have also benefited from repeated exchanges with my colleagues Robin
Jarrett, John Knodel, and Kerth O'Brien, as well as from discussions with many other social scientists who
have helped me to pursue my interest in focus groups, including Duane Alwin, Gene Anderson, Janet Mancini
Billson, Linda Boise, Edgar Butler, Martha Ann Carey, Ben Crabtree, Ted Fuller, Bill Gamson, Bob Hanneman,
John Kennedy, Will Miller, Jan Morse, Eliot Smith, Richard Zeller, and Mary Zinkin. I have been fortunate to
work with many talented graduate students, and I especially recognize Paula Carder, Marie Duncan, Steve
March, and Alice Scannell for their assistance with multiple projects over the years. In addition, like so many
other Sage authors, I owe a special debt to Mitch Allen for all his assistance and insights over the years.
Finally, I want to thank my wife, Susan Wladaver-Morgan, not just for her consistently professional editing of
my work but also for all the many other ways in which she has supported my work.

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Introduction

In a church meeting room, a group of widows compare their experiences. One woman complains
that other people wanted her to stop grieving in 6 months, but that it really takes much longer. Anoth-
er woman produces murmurs of agreement throughout the groups when she adds that the second
year is sometimes harder than the first (Morgan, 1989).

In a living room, a group of working people discuss their views of major political topics such as af-
firmative action, nuclear power, and the Arab-Israeli conflict. One striking element of their conversa-
tions is the number of personal connections that they make to these issues, even when they react to
examples of how the mass media portray these topics (Gamson, 1992).

In a rural village in Thailand, two groups, one of young men and one of young women, discuss the
number of children they want to have and how this has changed since their parents' day. Elsewhere
in the same village, groups from the older generation discuss how they feel about this issue and how
things have changed for their children. Later, the researcher analyzes tapes of these discussions
to compare the thoughts and experiences of men and women in the older and younger generation
(Knodel, Havanon, & Pramualratana, 1984).

In Chicago, a group of young African American mothers talk about what it is like to be on welfare.
They all agree that it is a hard life, but to hear them tell it they have what it takes to get along despite
their obvious problems. Still, as the discussion wears on, their stories are more and more about how
hard it is and less about their own ability to rise above their circumstances (Jarrett, 1993).

Each of these examples describes a piece of research using focus groups. As a form of qualitative research,
focus groups are basically group interviews, although not in the sense of an alternation between a re-
searcher's questions and the research participants' responses. Instead, the reliance is on interaction within
the group, based on topics that are supplied by the researcher who typically takes the role of a moderator.
The hallmark of focus groups is their explicit use of group interaction to produce data and insights that would
be less accessible without the interaction found in a group.

Only a decade ago, focus groups were almost unknown to social scientists. Now, a review of on-line databas-
es (Morgan, 1996) indicates that research using focus groups is appearing in academic journals at the rate of
more than 100 articles per year. Their use in applied research outside academic settings is even more exten-

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sive. This rapid growth is partly due to social scientists' ability to borrow from an established set of practices
in marketing research, in which focus groups have been the dominant form of qualitative data collection (e.g.,
Goldman & MacDonald, 1987; Greenbaum, 1993; Hayes & Tatham, 1989). The other major factor driving the
growth of focus groups has been social scientists' ability to adapt this technique to our own purposes (e.g.,
Krueger, 1994; Morgan, 1993a; Stewart & Shamdasani, 1990; Vaughn, Schumm, & Sinagub, 1996). The re-
cent history of focus groups in the social sciences has thus been one of both considerable borrowing and
considerable innovation.

Uses for Focus Groups

The on-line search referred to previously revealed three basic uses for focus groups in current social science
research. First, they are used as a self-contained method in studies in which they serve as the principal
source of data. Second, they are used as a supplementary source of data in studies that rely on some oth-
er primary method such as a survey. Third, they are used in multimethod studies that combine two or more
means of gathering data in which no one primary method determines the use of the others.

In the self-contained uses, focus groups serve as the primary means of collecting qualitative data, just as par-
ticipant observation or individual interviewing can serve as a primary means of gathering data. Using focus
groups in this manner requires a careful matching of the goals of the research with the data that the focus
groups can produce to meet these goals. Accordingly, the use of focus groups as a self-contained method
often leads to an emphasis on research design.

In supplementary uses of focus groups, the group discussions often serve as a source of preliminary data in
a primarily quantitative study. For example, they can be used to generate survey questionnaires or to develop
the content of applied programs and interventions. The focus groups could also serve as a source of follow-
up data to assist the primary method. For instance, they might be used to pursue poorly understood survey
results or to evaluate the outcome of a program or intervention. In these supplementary uses of focus groups,
the groups must be set up and conducted in ways that maximize their value for the primary method.

In multimethod uses, focus groups typically add to the data that are gathered through other qualitative meth-
ods, such as participant observation and individual interviews. The model here is clearly ethnography, which
has traditionally involved a blend of observation and interviewing. Bringing focus groups into this combination
simply means using group as well as individual interviews (e.g., Willis, 1977). In these combined uses of qual-
itative methods, the goal is to use each method so that it contributes something unique to the researcher's

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understanding of the phenomenon under study. The relative place of focus groups within this mix of methods
would depend on the researcher's data needs, the opportunities and limitations of the field setting, and so on.

Focus groups can thus serve a number of different purposes. Used in a self-contained fashion, they can be
the basis for a complete study. Used with other methods, they can either supplement another primary method
or combine with other qualitative methods in a true partnership. This flexible range of uses for focus groups
in the social sciences contrasts strongly with marketing applications in which focus groups have historically
served as a preliminary step to be followed by quantitative research (McQuarrie, 1996). Given the strong tra-
dition of qualitative research in the social sciences, researchers in these fields have understandably taken a
broader approach to the uses of focus groups. Even so, the options we have currently developed certainly do
not exhaust the possible uses of focus groups, and there are undoubtedly many other creative uses of focus
groups still waiting to be discovered.

Focus Groups in Historical Perspective

Focus groups are not really new. Within the social sciences, Bogardus's (1926) description of group interviews
is among the earliest published work. Group interviews also played a notable part in applied social research
programs during World War II, including efforts to examine the persuasiveness of propaganda efforts and the
effectiveness of training materials for the troops (Merton & Kendall, 1946), as well as studies on factors that
affected the productivity of work groups (Thompson & Demerath, 1952). It was these wartime efforts that pro-
duced the first detailed discussions of group interviews, which evolved from a mimeographed manual to a re-
cently reissued book (Merton, Fiske, & Kendall, 1990). At about the same time, focus groups were transplant-
ed into marketing research by Paul Lazarsfeld and others. Indeed, it was Lazarsfeld, a colleague of Merton's
at Columbia, whose program of research on audience response to radio broadcasts first introduced Merton
to group interviews (Merton et al., 1990; Rogers, 1994). Although his fellow sociologists have emphasized
Lazarsfeld's contributions to quantitative research, marketers have always given equal time to his qualitative
work—a balance that was important to Lazarsfeld himself (see Lazarsfeld, 1972), as was his dual involve-
ment in academics and marketing.

Given such auspicious origins, why did focus groups virtually disappear from the social sciences during the
next three decades? One likely reason is that Merton et al. (1990) explicitly limited the uses of “focused inter-
views” to gauging reaction stimulus materials, such as films, radio broadcasts, and written manuals. Further-

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more, neither Merton nor his colleagues published much research that used group interviews. For example,
The Student Physician (Merton, Reader, & Kendall, 1957) made extensive use of tabulations from survey da-
ta and quoted liberally from diaries that the students kept, but the authors made only passing mention of the
fact that they also used group interviews. During this same time, work with groups became closely associ-
ated with small group decision making in social psychology, whereas most of the development of qualitative
methods centered on participant observation and individual interviewing (Becker & Greer, 1957). The basic
reason that focus groups did not take hold earlier thus appears to be neglect, both by the technique's original
proponents, who turned to other pursuits, and by its potential users, who concentrated on other methods.

Even so, various versions of the group interview have been a frequent, if incidental, feature of qualitative re-
search. Examples would include Irwin's (1970) interviews with groups of prisoners in The Felon, Hochschild's
(1983) group interviews with stewardesses in The Managed Heart, or Gubrium's (1987) observations of a
support group in Old Timers and Alzheimer's. In most of these cases, group interviews were used primarily
for convenience—either groups allowed more individuals to be reached at once or groups were where the
participants were most likely to be located. Perhaps because of this emphasis on simple convenience, group
interviewing was not systematically developed as a research technique in the social sciences until recently.

In the early 1980s, applied demographers (e.g., Folch-Lyon, de la Macorra, & Schearer, 1981) began to use
focus groups as a way to understand the knowledge, attitudes, and practices that influenced the use of con-
traception. At about the same time, British communication researchers began using focus groups to examine
how audience members interpreted media messages (Lunt & Livingstone, 1996). With the advent of the ac-
quired immunodeficiency syndrome epidemic, researchers (e.g., Joseph et al., 1984) used focus groups as a
first step to overcome their limited knowledge about the gay community. Meanwhile, other health educators
(e.g., Basch, 1987) were improving the effectiveness of intervention programs by holding group discussions
with members of their target audience. Oral history provided other applications (Ingersoll & Ingersoll, 1987).
A landmark occurred in 1987 with the first publication of book-length texts on focus groups by marketers, sev-
eral of which are now in second editions (Goldman & McDonald, 1987; Greenbaum, 1993; Templeton, 1994).
The social sciences were not far behind. In 1988, the first edition of this book appeared along with the first
edition of Krueger's text (1994), which fueled the interest in focus groups as a tool in evaluation research.
Given the existence of these resources, as well as subsequent books (Stewart & Shamdasani, 1990; Vaughn
et al., 1996) and special issues of journals (Carey, 1995; Knodel, 1995), focus groups have become an in-
creasingly well-known method for collecting qualitative data.

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Focus Groups and Group Interviews

One question that has accompanied the rising use of group interviews has been whether the label “focus
groups” fits all these different applications. According to one school of thought (Frey & Fontana, 1989; Khan
& Manderson, 1992), we need to develop a typology of different kinds of group interviews, which would de-
fine focus groups as one specific form of group interview. The “exclusive approach” emphasizes the need to
determine which forms of group interview are or are not focus groups. My own preference (Morgan, 1996) is
for a more inclusive approach that broadly defines focus groups as a research technique that collects data
through group interaction on a topic determined by the researcher. In essence, it is the researcher's interest
that provides the focus, whereas the data themselves come from the group interaction.

One reason for favoring an inclusive approach is that the exclusive approaches do not really exclude very
much. Other than focus groups, the primary categories of group interviews in the existing typologies are things
that are manifestly different from focus groups. On the one hand, there are nominal groups and Delphi groups
(Stewart & Shamdasani, 1990), which do not involve actual group interaction. On the other hand, there is the
observation of naturally occurring groups, which typically do not involve the researcher in determining the top-
ic of discussion. Thus, little is gained by excluding these categories of data collection because they already
fall outside the broad definition of focus groups offered here.

Among the more specific criteria that could be used to distinguish focus groups from other types of group in-
terviews, both Frey and Fontana (1989) and Khan and Manderson (1992) assert that focus groups are more
formal. In particular, they argue that focus groups are likely to involve inviting participants to the discussion
and they also stress the distinctive role of the moderator. Although there is no doubt that group interviews
vary along a continuum from more formally structured interaction to more informal gatherings, I do not believe
it is possible to draw a line between formal and informal group interviews in a way that defines some as focus
groups and others as something else. Instead, I find it more useful to think that the degree of formal structure
in a focus group is a decision that the research makes according to the specific purposes of the research pro-
ject. In particular, the use of either a more formal or a less formal approach will depend on the researcher's
goals, the nature of the research setting, and the likely reaction of the participants to the research topic.

Among the other criteria that have been offered as distinguishing features of focus groups are their size and
the use of specialized facilities for the interview (McQuarrie, 1996). Again, however, these supposedly exclu-
sive criteria are mostly a matter of degree. Who is to say when a group is too large or too small to be called

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a focus group or when a setting is too casual to qualify? Rather than generate pointless debates about what
is or is not a focus group, I prefer to treat focus groups as a “broad umbrella” or “big tent” that can include
many different variations. Of course, this approach requires researchers to make choices about doing focus
groups one way rather than another. Fortunately, this need to make explicit decisions about data collection
strategies is a familiar concern to social scientists, and it comes under the heading of “research design.” As
social scientists have gained increasing experience with focus groups, we also have produced insights into
the situations in which different research designs are either more or less likely to be effective (e.g., Krueger,
1993; Morgan, 1992a, 1995).

Overview of the Remainder of This Book

The ultimate goal of this book is to provide the motivated reader with the wherewithal to conduct effective
focus group research. Although a slim volume such as this cannot produce “instant experts,” it can provide
a basis for growth in an area that resembles many things we already do. Much of what goes into conducting
focus groups touches on the same issues that arise in any effort to collect qualitative data. Thus, a continuing
theme of this book is that those of us who become focus group researchers are simply occupying a natural
niche within the well-defined territory of qualitative research methodology.

The next chapter compares focus groups to the two most common means of gathering qualitative data—indi-
vidual interviewing and participant observation—and uses this comparison to locate the strengths and weak-
nesses of focus groups. Chapter 3 presents a variety of different applications for focus groups as a research
technique, both as a self-contained means of collecting data and in combination with other methods. Chapter
4 covers the technical aspects involved in planning and designing focus groups. That chapter and the next
provide a thorough treatment of the practical issues involved in focus groups, and Chapter 5 presents the
fundamental options in conducting focus groups. Chapter 6 examines a variety of additional possibilities that
go beyond the basic format. The concluding chapter returns to the theme of focus groups as a qualitative
method to look at the potential contributions of this new method to social science research.

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About the Author

David L. Morgan received his Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Michigan and did postdoctoral work at
Indiana University. He is currently a professor in the Institute on Aging and the Department of Urban Studies
and Planning at Portland State University. His research interests center on the ways that people respond
to major life changes, which has led him to study retirement communities, nursing homes, widowhood,
knowledge about risk factors for heart attacks, caregiving for elderly family members, and, recently, the aging
of the Baby Boom generation. When he is not conducting focus groups or writing about them, you may find
him hiking in the 5,000 acres of Portland's Forest Park.

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