Moderating focus groups

hello I'm dick Kruger from the University of Minnesota we're glad you're with us today because we're going to be conducting a focus group the topic is on airline travel and we've invited a number of people who have traveled by airplane over the past few years to join us for a discussion and we're going to be talking about experiences and inconveniences they faced in their airline travel over the past few years this is a video to show some of the aspects of moderating in a focus group but many things have occurred before the actual beginning of the focus group you've tried to identify the relevant participants you've recruited the participants to come you've arranged for the logistics and you develop the questions all of these things take place before the focus group but now the moment has arrived in a few minutes people will be coming and joining us in the group and you'll see several scenes depicting some of the important parts that take place in the focus group what to do when people arrive at the focus group how a moderator handles people who talked at great length that you want them to stop or how people may not talk very much and you want to encourage them to say more we'll be demonstrating some of the ways of using questions and a focus group and how to close a focus group all of these things are experiences that take place in the focus group and we're glad that you're able to join us now in this video it could be used in a variety of ways you may want to watch it in its entirety from beginning to end to see how a focus group works or you may want to stop it and start it at various points and have discussion about various parts we hope this is helpful to you thank you for joining us we've arrived early and checked out the room the table the chairs the flipchart the food everything looks satisfactory now we're in the process of setting up the recording equipment we have a tape recorder and a remote microphone the microphone goes in the middle of the table with a cord off to the side and the tape recorder goes to the back the lunches are put on the table behind so that people can pick them up when they arrive we have named tents that we prepared in advance and we place those who may be more talkative or have more domineering personalities close to the moderator those who are quieter are put directly across once we've done all this we do a quick sound check of the equipment by walking around the table and talking in a normal tone of voice to be sure that the microphone and tape recorder are working adequately the room is set up and now we're ready for people to join us in just a moment they will arrive notice how people are welcomed into the focus group yes yes I'm dick Krueger my gene variant for Angie nice to meet you we've got some food over here on the excellent Grammys good nice you know I don't know where am I going to sit like oh we got a place for you right over there this is the focus group presence on your own travel yes sir Krueger my name is sherry use me by they have you here sacrament to take a lunch please and join us we've got a place for you in the right place this is it I'm not well all nice to have you witness the moderator is about to begin the actual focus group this introduction is short and snappy and covers four points a welcome and introduction to the topic some background on the topic ground rules for the focus group and the opening question well good afternoon and welcome to our session my name is dick Krueger and I'm with the happy traveler research agency and we're pleased you could all join us today for our focus group we've invited you to join our discussion on airline travel today we're going to be talking about experiences that you've had in traveling by airplane experiences that within the last few years we're going to be talking about things that have worked well for you things you've enjoyed as well as things that haven't gone so well this study is being done at the request of the airline industry you may know people have had a variety of experiences and airline industries regularly are trying to improve the quality of their service and so at the end of our study we're going to be sharing information back with them also if you're interested we'll have a copy of the report available to you as well let us know if that's something that you're interested in you were selected because you were among a group of people who have traveled fairly often over the past few years and we're glad you're here for our group as I indicated my name is dick Kruger I'm with the happy traveler research agency and my colleague is Mary Ann Casey and she'll be taking notes and helping record the conversation we're going to be tape recording today we have a microphone in the middle of the room and then we tape record so we don't miss any of the comments oftentimes people say things so well we're not able to write them down quickly enough and the tape recorder helps us capture those there's just a couple ground rules that might help us if you have a cell phone we'd appreciate if you'd turn it off or turn it on the quiet mode if you do need to respond to it please step out but then come back in as soon as possible we have more refreshments and some chocolate over there on the side table so help yourself to that whatever you feel a need for those things there are no wrong answers today in our conversation many people have different experiences with airline travel and so feel free to comment even if your thoughts and ideas or experiences are different from what others have to say my job is to guide the conversation and to keep us on time and be sure that we finish at the end of our allotted two hours today and so along the way I may interrupt I may push us along a little bit faster that's so that we can finish our conversation on time well let's take a moment also by the way we're going to be on a first-name basis we have named tents with our first names on let's take a moment and go around the table and find out who you are and would you tell us your name and then also tell us where you've traveled to by airplane in the last year and would you name some of the cities that you travel to and would you start I'm John Brown and last year I traveled at the beginning of a focus group most comments are directed directly to the moderator but as the focus group continues the moderator will try to get people to look across the table and speak to the other participants this is a good sign and something to be desired in your focus groups one of the effective techniques of moderating is to use a short pause usually about five seconds this allows participants a chance to reflect and think and a chance to express their thoughts okay well let's get started with the questions in our focus group the first one and we're not going to go around the table and anyone can answer this who chooses tell me this what do you like about airline travel oh I can stop that I am I like that it gets me between two places relatively quickly when moderating a focus group you'll find that some people talk too much ramble on about a topic and you'll need to have a strategy for how to deal with this here's an example of what you do when a person talks too much and how the moderator redirects the question to another participant all right well let's let's talk about inconveniences in your experiences with airline travel you may have encountered an inconvenience may have been in the last year or a little bit before would you tell me about an inconvenience you've had but let me tell you it is always around baggage and it seems to me that there's always something that happens with my package when I travel I was coming back from Bangkok I was meant to get my baggage in LA to take it through immigration and when I got there could you find it anywhere it just wasn't there and I stood there and stood there and stood there and I went behind the counter to the counter and they said well you know it's just not there and it will turn up eventually and maybe it will turn up in Minneapolis but it's just been one long string of things after another I mean the baggage is always too large to fit in the overhead bin but it's even worse when you're traveling by train because when you're traveling by train you have to get the baggage up from the platform and then you have to haul it into the coach and then you're pulling it all the way down the coach in order to get to your seat on the tray there's never anyone there to help ya that can be a problem let's hear from some others in the group our Frances how about you have you had an experience with it inconvenience well I haven't had a problem with luggage because I always sometimes participants do not talk very much in a focus group one of the strategies that moderators use is to look at those individuals and at times call on them and invite their comments here's an example of how it works sherry we we haven't heard from you on this what are the things that you don't like about airline travel well mostly two things luggage and children who tell me about tell me about each of those tell me about luggage and tell me about children well with luggage you never know if they're going to accept your carry-on or not in some airlines even on the same airline sometimes the carry-on fits they say it will fit in the overhead and other times they take away from me and then have to check it so even though I think it's standard size sometimes one of the things that happens in the focus group is there are key moments when people start to own the group or feel like they are a group and in a discussion here's an example when these things occur Auto raters often encourage these and allow people to talk across the table to each other all right you know I want to say something else about luggage it and it relates to when planes are late if you never know if your bags will make make it and sometimes oh yeah not your fault you checked you've done what you're supposed to do and then they mess it up and then you get there you don't have so I carry now a lot of things in my carry-on because I just have to assume they won't make it I never check anything and I always carry on never you never check because you just can't play ever this good one of the techniques that moderators use is to ask participants to play a role this is particularly effective when you're trying to get people to discuss and talk about a complex idea that his best described by actually acting it out or playing a role let's see how it works let's let's talk about inconveniences things that have happened to you and along the way Jim have you had inconvenience I had one of the probably major inconveniences traumas of my life when I landed a skip Oh airport in Amsterdam got off the plane to start down this huge airport to the connecting flight to Deborah and I realized my wallet wasn't in my rear pocket where it normally resides and I immediately went to someone and who worked for that same airline and they wouldn't deal with me I mean they sent it here's a number to call I called that number they weren't open on Sundays no one I couldn't get any response there was no one the normal procedures were shut down for one of probably the major flying days of the week that was left not only worrying about what I was going to do next but what were the implement what I should be doing what you try to do under these circumstances sounds like you wanted them to do some more things for you I wanted them to be respond let's talk about that a bit let let it can you let's pretend that you lost your wallet and now Jim works for the airline company and Jim you're going to demonstrate how you would learn at the airline to respond when Ken loses his wallet so Ken would you turn to Jim and make your complaint excuse me sir I've just come off Northwest flight 43 from Minneapolis and I don't have my wallet with me and I I think I had my wallet when I got on the aircraft did you tell anyone on the plane or I just realized that when I walked off the plane what plane were you on oh I I like I do a 343 from Minneapolis well let me get on the phone you want to call the gate someone go on the plane do you know what seat you're in yes I was in 99 1980 let me call I'll get down to the gate agent we'll have them check 1980 I mean why wouldn't you make sure you look through your code or whatever make sure good idea and then as soon as we get a call we'll see what we can do because time is of the essence yeah it's got all my money all my credit has an iron I don't have anything with me so I really need some help hey hey one we're going to take care of it we'll get you through this this is going to heaven and thank you thank you often after the role-playing is finished we ask other participants to comment on the experience and would any of you have done this differently did he say the right thing it doesn't really good what did he do what did he do that was so good that that showed this that the quality concerned for one thing and that was helpful it was the combination of emotional support and res doing something and then he did something that was helpful and it was logical a little tiny I really believe no I really thought he was going to do not just tell me and then go back to reading the newspaper you know I really whatever he did I really believe that he wasn't know it made him convincing I don't maybe it was a tone of his voice or the look in his eye but he really seemed to to understand that I had lost my wallet and IRA also touched your arm yeah I seem to say he repeated back stuff why he remembered the flight that I was on so he would I knew he was listening and and he seemed to have have remembered that the main parts of my story and just seemed to be really convincing Jim if this would have happened to you how would you have felt totally different than I felt under the circumstances in reality because no one I'm sure they see it a hundred times a day they probably assumed you'd been stolen there was a waste of time and they weren't about to waste their time on me okay what we'd like to do is talk about some inconveniences that people have in airline travel I've got some cards here and I'd like to have each of you take a card and a pen and I'd like you to write down on this card three inconveniences that people have when they travel by airline one of the strategies for getting information from participants is to use a list you pass out a card they write down several things and then the moderator takes that and makes a larger list on the flip chart all right Ken I think you finished let's start with you what are the three things you have I have a being light and missing connections once the larger list is made and everyone can see the items often a second question is asked for the participants to tell which are the most important or the most significant of all of those that are on the list well it looks like most of our comments we had a number of them that have talked about late and missing connections let's talk a little bit more about that for a moment the moderator may then choose to mark or circle those items on the flip chart this technique is particularly helpful when you're trying to identify larger number of items and then to quickly identify from that larger number which ones are the most relevant to each participant another strategy and asking questions is to use a short rating sheet all right what I'd like to do is spend a few moments talking about inconveniences and I have here in front of me and I'd like to pass around a list of possible inconveniences that you may have experienced in the last two years and what I'd like you to do is just take a moment and check off how often have you experienced these inconveniences in the past year so just put a checkmark down by rarely or never sometimes often are almost always in this case we have just a few questions and we ask participants to rate their degree of interest or agreement on differing kinds of items we quickly tabulate those on the sheet and then use this as a springboard for later discussions I've made a list of these categories I'm going to quickly tabulate to find out the frequency that we have and so I'm going around the table very quickly here and Jim would you give me your responses I lost luggage is where rarely okay delayed flights often long lines sometimes one of the techniques moderators use is to have rapid ways of getting information from people through the use of fingers or thumbs or writing words on pieces of paper you're able to quickly get information from people let's take a look at some examples okay now what we'd like to do is I'm going to be announcing or giving the names of a number of inconveniences that people might have and I'd like you to tell me how frequently you have experienced these in the last two years we're going to use fingers on this and so what I'd like to do is have you hold up your hands not just not right now but in just a moment when I call for those and hold up up to five fingers if you hold up five fingers like this that means that this happens almost every time it happens very regularly almost always four fingers it happens regularly but not at every time three you know about half the time it occurs too it happens occasionally and one finger beings that rarely does this happen or never at all and so I'll be naming one like for example the first one is lost luggage hold up your hands with how many fingers has this occurred to you in the last couple years okay I see a 1 1 2 2 1 1 okay the lane flights this information is designed to lead you into the focus group to find out the reasons why something might be happening the critical thing is that you go beyond the initial rating or the initial numbers and find out some of the underlying causes or reasons why people are saying what they do ok what we'd like to do is talk about strategies or solutions that could be done to inconveniences and I'm going to name a strategy or a possible solution and but I'd like you to do is tell me by the direction of your thumb whether you agree or disagree with this if your thumb is up you agree and you feel that's a positive solution if your thumb is down that's not a good solution if it's in the middle you're sort of indifferent about it if you decide to wiggle your thumb that means you strongly agree or strongly disagree another solution is having a designated place for children on the airplane either at the very front or the very back ok I see a green neutral strongly agree strongly agree and disagree and a strongly agree ok as participants give their responses notice that the moderator is actually speaking them out loud agree agree agree neutral agree neutron the reason is that this now appears on the audio tape and it also allows the assistant moderator to make a note of those in the field notes another strategy used by moderators is what we call projection by asking people to indicate by use of animals or objects what something might represent all right what I'd like to do is to talk about an airline company if the airline if your airline company that you regularly use was an animal what kind of an animal would it be that's easy a lion boy let's go back that you sure you said a lion could you tell me why you said lion when using this strategy it's important to be sure that participants give the reason why they're choosing the particular item that they are schedules they dominated prices okay that's why I said will and I saw them is there this big thing that takes over everything okay the skunk right because they're very interested in themselves and if you mess with them you're in deep trouble at the end of the focus group there are several strategies moderators can use to conclude the group one strategy is to ask each participant to reflect and to indicate what were the most important things that were talked about in the conversation our final question for today deals we're going to go around the table with this one of all the things we've talked about today what to you is the most important thing that we that has been said it might have been something that you've said or maybe something you've heard someone else say and what is what is it that's most important and Jim could we start with you go around what what is the most important thing you've heard in our discussion today I I think probably a fairly universal dissatisfaction with the way the airline personnel people and policies kind of discount us just becomes give us your money get on developing and go away and be quiet lack of consideration presses beyond cash flow I guess that people do have such strong to satisfaction feelings and I don't so I'm thinking that I don't have anything really strongly negative about being inconvenienced or I still think it's remarkable that you hop on in one town and two hours four hours 12 hours you'll hop off in another part of the world the fact that you get a little bag of prep sources is pretty insignificant than the whole event of going from one place to another so I'm feeling that I've learned that maybe I'm not paying attention or maybe I'm wrong because I'm not just satisfied so can you just young yeah well can it's funny because when when dick said that question my thought was that maybe we're all just being too negative yes there are problems yes it's expensive but the rest of the world does not have the privilege of walking onto a little you know piece of equipment and then going any place literally in the world and that may be the airlines need to think more about the back to the glam nuts not glamour but it's the thrill yeah sounds too corny but the excitement of getting places at the end of the focus group the moderator often turns to the person who's been taking notes the assistant moderator and invites this person to follow up on any questions that are important in the conversation and to give a very short summary we're going to ask Mary Ann has been taking notes and recording things Mary Ann did you have any final questions you want to ask this group or or would and then if you don't do would you give a little brief summary of our group or some of the key points that we've talked about today one of the things that you want to follow up on was there was a discussion about children and that came up as being kind of one of the frequent things that comes up what could the airline do about that are there things I know sure you said they were playing but it was probably not very realistic but are there things that could be done I think that the airlines might try and help parents at the end when this summary is concluded the assistant turns to the participants in the group and asks for confirmation did we hear things correctly it was really about interactions with people is there anything that I missed or does that no that sounds really good nice it mmm okay back deal all right well that concludes our group today thank you very much we appreciate your presence you are help yourself to some chocolates on your way out and have a safe and healthy and enjoyable flying in future thank you thank you for watching our video on a focus group moderating a focus group is a challenging task it involves a lot of things to think about sometimes it's like a three-ring circus where you're trying to think of what has been said and what's about to be said and then what's coming in the future so there's a lot to think about as you do it this video shows some of the elements that take place in a focus group but a lot of additional things will remain to be done after the focus group is over this involved things like doing the analysis and preparing a report at the end of the focus group sometimes the participants in a focus group know each other and other times they're complete strangers sometimes you'll have rooms such as the one you saw today but other times you'll have other kinds of rooms sometimes without tables sometimes in restaurants sometimes in people's homes sometimes seated around comfortable chairs in someone's living room focus groups can be done in many different kinds of ways the important thing is that people feel comfortable with each other and feel comfortable and talking about it the critical things to remember arrive early so that you have time to set things up and check the logistics to be sure everything is working okay get yourself mentally prepared focus on the experience and think about the kinds of things that are going to be taking place pay attention to what people are saying when you hear cryptic or vague remarks probe and ask for some additional information and finally enjoy yourself as you do it there's a lot of things to think about I'm sure you'll find a focus group to be pleasant and rewarding experience thank you for watching I hope all of your focus groups go well

Channel: Richard Krueger

Views: 225,571

Keywords: Richard A Kreuger, Richard Kreuger, Focus Groups, Focus Group, Focus Group Interviewing, Moderating Focus Groups, Mary Anne Casey, University Of Minnesota (College/University), www.richardakreuger.com

Id: xjHZsEcSqwo

Length: 30min 14sec (1814 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 28 2015