group interviews/focus groups nina cogger ot education
TRANSCRIPT
Group Interviews/Focus groups
Nina CoggerOT Education
Supporting the Mature Occupational Therapy Student:
An investigation into the support systems available for non-traditional
Occupational Therapy students in Wales.
Methods…..
• Questionnaires
• Group Discussion
• Documentary Analysis
Why group discussion/focus group?
• Potential for discussion amongst recipients, thus encouraging a wider range of responses
• Practical advantage of acquiring responses from a number of people at one time
• Saves a lot of organisational and time requirements
• Range of opinions and viewpoints in one place
(Cohen et al, 2007).
Continued……• Group interviews can be useful when a group of people
have been working together for a while or had a common purpose and were concerned about what each other were saying.
(Watts and Ebbutt, 1987)
• The group interview was felt to be a useful method of gathering data for me, as discussing support issues may be too personal on an individual basis, and therefore a group had the potential for discussing general issues around that area and produce a wide range of information
(Stewart et al, 2007),
Disadvantages of group/focus interviews
• Group dynamics - one or several members may dominate the conversation, and not let others contribute towards the discussion
(Robson, 1993)
• Needs skilful chairing and management(Cohen et al, 2007).
• Another disadvantage of group interviews could be if there is a particularly vocal person, results may be biased towards the dominant person’s views.
(Stewart et al, 2007)
• Group interviews may not be conducive when asking people to discuss issues with other people they may not feel comfortable with, particularly sensitive issues
(Morgan, 1997)
Ideal numbers…..
• Six – eight
Too much, group may fragment and lose focus
Too little could pressurise individuals if all the attention is directed towards them
So what happened?
Interview 2 groups of mature students……..part time and
full time students
What did I do?• Residential weekend – sent out email
invitations to all the part time students attending (Cardiff & Wrexham)
• 8 respondents – good mix• Participant information sheets &
consent forms
And?
What actually happened…..
What could I have done better?
Also…………
• Full time students
On the positive…..
• The group interview did achieve the aims of clarifying issues that were raised in the questionnaire results and students were happy to contribute and share some of their experiences.
• Also, due to the time constraints, this method resulted in sharing the opinions of eight individuals in a relatively short time, and provided a rich depth of discussion and interaction.
The findings
• Mature students in the occupational therapy programmes in Wales, are subject to pressures and commitments, but do use a variety of support systems both within and outside of the university.
References• Cohen, L,, Manion, L., and Morrison, K., (2007), Research Methods in
Education (6th Ed). London. Routledge Falmer
• Morgan, D., (1997), Focus Groups as Qualitative Research (2nd Ed) London. Sage University.
• Robson, C., (1993), Real World Research – A resource for social scientists and practitioners researchers. Oxford. Blackwell Publishers.
• Stewart, D., Shamdasani, P., and Rook, D., (2007), Focus Groups – Theory and Practice (2nd Ed) London. Sage Publications.
• Watts, M., and Ebbutt, D., (1987), More than the sum of the parts: research methods in group interviewing. British Educational Research Journal. Vol 13 (1), 25-35
Thank you for listening!Any questions?