In this section, you will find a variety of materials to help you plan, administer, and analyze data from focus groups. This power point presentation from the 2008 Employment Summit workshop on qualitative research presents an overview of the process:
Qualitative Research Overview - Employment Summit 2008.
This section also includes a variety of materials used to conduct a series of focus groups with youth in transition and their parents. These materials may provide the format to help you to build your own materials for:
a) inviting people to participate in focus groups
b) obtaining informed consent from focus group participants
c) conducting the focus group
d) collecting additional information from focus group participants
If focus groups have been completed, you may find the following article helpful as you develop a coding scheme and analyze your data. If you are having difficulty locating this article, contact MIG-RATS.
Bradley, Elizabeth H., Curry, Leslie A., & Devers, Kelly J., (2007) Qualitative Data Analysis for Health Services Research: Developing Taxonomy, Themes, and Theory. Health Services Research 42:4, pp. 1758-1772.
Finally, for a text or manual that will assist with the entire focus group process, MIG Researchers have found the following to be helpful:
Morgan, David L., & Krueger, Richard A. (1998) The Focus Group Kit: Volumes 1-6. ISBN-13:9780761907602.
If you have a focus group discussion guide, sample of a focus group questionning route, favorite reference material for conducting focus groups, or a research presentation using focus groups that would be helpful to other states, please contact Anne Reither at areither@gmail.com
(click to view details)