A New Era in Focus Group Research Challenges, Innovation and Practice

This volume provides a critical approach to using focus groups, examining how focus groups have been utilized to research a diverse set of research questions covering a broad spectrum of substantive fields. The collection acknowledges the tensions between different research traditions, disciplinary emphases, funding climates, cultural, political, and ethical contexts, and the ever-changing policy backdrop. Contributors to this book encourage researchers to question and surmount disciplinary and terminological labels and disputes in order to capitalize on the full potential of focus groups, to illuminate the complex collaborative processes involved in forming, debating, contesting, and revising opinions; making decisions; and forging identities. 

The four sections that comprise this collection address, respectively, using focus groups in novel contexts; employing focus groups in mixed methods research designs; innovations in generating focus group data; and new theoretical developments. 

A New Era in Focus Group Research will be of interest to students and scholars across disciplines as well as focus group practitioners outside of academia. 

1. Setting the scene for a new era of focus group research; Rosaline S. Barbour.- Part I: Using Focus Groups in New Settings.- 2. Accessing the closed world of professional football; Chris Platts and Andy Smith.- 3. Outsourcing qualitative health research; Laurence Kohn & Wendy Christiaens.- 4. Cross-cultural focus group discussions; Monique M. Hennink.- 5.  Exploring Sex, HIV & ‘Sensitive' Space(s) among Sexual Minority Young Adults in Thailand; Peter A. Newman, Suchon Tepjan, & Clara Rubincam.- Part 2: Capitalizing on Focus Groups in Mixed Methods Contexts.- 6. Use of focus groups in developing behavioural m-health interventions: A critical review; Helen Eborall & Katie Morton.- 7. Programme evaluation in the Chinese cultural context; Daniel T.L. Shek.- 8. Focus groups in triangulation contexts; Sabine Caillaud and Uwe Flick.- 9. Hybrid focus groups as a means to investigate practical reasoning, learning processes and indigenous activities; Ana Prades, Josep Espluga & Tom Horlick-Jones.- Part III:Innovations in Focus Group Facilitation.- 10. The use of video recording in longitudinal focus group research; Claire Thompson, Daniel J Lewis AND Stephanie J.C. Taylor.- 11. Best practices for Synchronous Online Focus Groups; Bojana Lobe.- 12. Performance-Based Focus Groups; Jennifer Wooten.- 13. Collective production of discourse and the Qualitative School of Madrid; Jorge Ruiz Ruiz.- Part IV: Theoretical Developments.- 14. A kaleidoscope of voices: Using focus groups in a study of rural adolescent girls; Erin E. Seato.- 15.  Bringing socio-narratology and visual methods to focus group research; Cassandra Phoenix, Noreen Orr and Meridith Griffin.- 16. Focus groups as anticipatory methodology: A contribution from Science and Technology Studies towards socially-resilient governance; Phil Macnaghten.- 17. Using focus groups to study the process of (de)politicization;Sophie Duchesne.- 18. Practice theoretically inspired focus groups: Socially recognizable performativity?; Bente Halkier.- 19. A call for further innovations in focus groups; David L. Morgan.

Rosaline S. Barbour is a medical sociologist and is Emerita Professor at the Open University, UK. She runs a company offering bespoke workshops and training sessions on qualitative research methods.

David L. Morgan is Professor of Sociology at Portland State University, USA. He is widely known for his work on focus groups and has worked extensively on mixed methods.