Focus group
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Introduction
According to Wikipedia (March 18,2011), {{quotation| A focus group is a form of qualitative research in which a group of people are asked about their perceptions, opinions, beliefs and attitudes towards a product, service, concept, advertisement, idea, or packaging. Questions are asked in an interactive group setting where participants are free to talk with other group members. The first focus groups were created at the Bureau of Applied Social Research in the USA, by associate director, sociologist Robert K. Merton. The term itself was coined by psychologist and marketing expert Ernest Dichter.
The benefits of the focus group method is that its discussion stimulates people's thoughts and flow of idea generation/discussion.
There are disadvantages like reliability (the same or a similar focus group may produce different results), generalization (focus group may not represent a larger population). Also, in group setting, people may hold back information (or the other way round).
Focus group methods are best used to elicit attitudes, opinions, desires, maybe intentions. What people tell may no be necessarily what they do or can do. E.g. to understand what people do one has to observe them doing, to understand what they can do one has to test their abilities with tasks.
Method
There exist several variants.