Two questions: providing Qs ahead of time + typical size of focus groups

[Adelaide9216]

Hello,

Two questions.

1) How common practice is it in qualitative interviews to provide interviewees questions ahead of time?

2) I am conducting focus groups. I read that the ideal size of a focus groups is 6-8 people. However, due to scheduling issues, I may have to reduce the size of focus groups or literally conduct individual interviews with some participants. Is it "bad" research practice if I decide to conduct focus groups of 3-4 people instead and have more total focus groups at the end for the project?

 

ps: I will discuss that with my supervisor after Labor Day, when I get back to school.

 

Thanks

 

[juilletmercredi]

1) Not very common, in my experience. I do qualitative interviewing, and I wouldn't provide my participants with questions ahead of time - I'd be worried about them being too prepared with their responses and not capturing some of the natural/spontaneous reactions I'd be looking for in certain areas. Often you can give a brief, high-level summary of what they can expect to talk about.

2) My answer is colored by the fact that I work in industry, where often the answer is that sometimes you bend the rules of research as long as you understand the impact that will have on your outcomes and can temper your interpretation and recommendations on that basis. So I have done focus groups with 3-4 people before when I've had to, due to the difficulty of scheduling or recruiting participants. However, I wouldn't recommend it, particularly for an academic project (that you may hope to publish someday). Given my experience, I wouldn't recommend doing a focus group that was smaller than four people - at that point, you may as well just do individual interviews. Depending on the project, you may decide to do individual interviews AND a focus group.

However, do be careful, because focus groups and individual interviews don't provide you with the same things. So consider your research question and what kind of tool it requires.