Focus Groups: A Practical Guide for Applied Research

Front Cover
SAGE, 2009 - Reference - 219 pages

The Fourth Edition of the bestselling Focus Groups: A Practical Guide for Applied Research offers an easy-to-ready overview of sound focus group practices.

Authors Richard A. Krueger & Mary Anne Casey describe how one can set up and conduct quality and effective focus group interviews. The process depicted is unbiased, non-judgmental and is respectful of all views. It is a deliberate and systematic way of listening that is helpful to public and private organizations as they listen to stakeholders, customers, and employees.

This book cuts through the theory and gives hand-on advice to those who are seeking to actually conduct a focus group. It is most helpful for conducting focus groups for research or evaluation with public, non-profit, educational, health, human service, and religious organizations.

Key Features

  • Offers the latest on telephone and Internet focus groups
  • Provides suggested focus group questions that help students construct quality questions that engage participants and produce dependable and valid results.
  • Gives solid information on organizational focus groups
  • Presents ways on how to recruit participants to the focus group
  • Contains a number of practical tips that actually work. It is written for the person who has to plan, recruit, develop questions, moderate, analyze and report the results.
  • Incorporates icons throughout the book that offer tips, examples, additional resources and others bits of practical information.

Intended Audience

This book is appropriate for a variety of research methods and evaluation courses in departments such as education, sociology, political science, journalism, business & marketing, public administration, and public health.

 

Selected pages

Contents

02
16
03
34
04
62
05
84
06
112
07
132
08
142
09
154
11Krueger
172
12
184
13
190
14
196
Ref
207
A IndexKrueger
209
Sub Index
211
ATAKrueger
219

10
162
Copyright

Common terms and phrases

academic analysis answer approach ask participants ask questions assistant moderator attention audience audio recording Azusa Pacific University background begin behavior bulletin board Chapter chat room clients comfortable conducting focus groups consider conversation critical decision describe develop employees environment example experience factors feedback feel field notes flipcharts focus group interviews focus group participants focus group research focus group study give group discussion ideas identify important incentive individual insights invite issue limited listen Mary Anne Casey mind map nonprofit offer one-way mirrors oral report organization Participant Type person procedures purpose qualitative research questioning route recruiting research team responses sample screening selection share situations snowball sample someone Sometimes strategy summary talk telephone focus group tell things Thousand Oaks tion topic transcripts types of participants typically understand

About the author (2009)

Richard Krueger is professor emeritus at the University of Minnesota. He is an internationally recognized authority on the use of focus group interviewing within the public environment. For 25 years he served as evaluation leader for the University of Minnesota Extension Service followed by 10 years teaching graduate courses in program evaluation and research methodology. He is a former president of the American Evaluation Association and a member of the Qualitative Research Consultants Association. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota. In his spare time he repairs his motorcycle, swaps stories with friends, and shops for tools at the local hardware store. Maybe you’ve seen him there. Mary Anne Casey is an evaluator, writer, and teacher. She has been an evaluation consultant at the international, national, state, and local levels on topics relating to health, public policy, community development, agriculture, and the environment. Mary Anne has had the privilege of asking questions and listening, and the challenge of providing useful, enlightening results to clients. She relishes analysis and finding just the right way to convey what people have shared. She weaves the lessons she has learned into her work, her writing on focus group interviewing, and her teaching at the University of Minnesota, University of South Florida, and University of Michigan. Mary Anne previously worked for the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and the state of Minnesota. She received her PhD from the University of Minnesota. She gets her best insights while in the shower or on long walks.

Bibliographic information

TitleFocus Groups: A Practical Guide for Applied Research
AuthorsRichard A. Krueger, Mary Anne Casey
ContributorMary Anne Casey
Editionillustrated
PublisherSAGE, 2009
ISBN1412969476, 9781412969475
Length219 pages
Subjects ›  › 

Reference / Research
Science / General
Social Science / Anthropology / Cultural & Social
Social Science / Ethnology
Social Science / Methodology
Social Science / Research
Social Science / Sociology / General
  
Export CitationBiBTeX EndNote RefMan