CHAPTER ONE: ORIENTATION AND OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY
4.9 Methods of data collection
4.9.2 Data collection methods process
4.9.2.2 Focus-group interview
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they must agree to participate and appear for the interview, and, finally, the interview itself may take considerable time. Students were contacted and interviews were conducted during their non- contact periods when students were free to come for an interview. One of the major disadvantages of an interview is that the interviewers can be biased and interpret responses in the way that suit them (Kumar 2005). I avoided loaded questions when probing and was consistently objective towards the responses. I resisted providing particular frames of reference for the respondent’s answers. I sustained neutrality by encouraging expression, but not helping constructing responses. I also ensured that the results of the research were recorded accurately to avoid bias.
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experiences. As a result of this, a detailed account by students reflected their shared experiences for this study.
The focus group interview enabled each participant to express their experiences on academic intervention and at the same time I was able to get the common views of all participants on the subject. Patton (2002) suggests that focus groups work best when people in the group are strangers to each other; the dynamics are quite different and more complex. In this study it was not possible to select strangers because it was a purposeful sampling of students ‘at risk’ in the Faculty of Education who attended the intervention programme but they only met during workshop and mentorship sessions. These students were enrolled for different modules and attended different lectures and they were in different year groups so they were not friends.
Before I started the interview I gave all participants a letter that gave an overview of the study and its purpose. I further assured them about the anonymity of their identity and they all signed participant’s letters. Some participants expressed the view that they were used to taking part in research and they respected research work because they knew that one could not conduct research in the institution without permission from the gatekeepers.
Each question was written on small cards and distributed to all participants so that they could refer to the question. The focus -group interview took place in a mentorship room, which is normally used by all students ‘at- risk’ who attend intervention programmes they were therefore familiar with the environment. The setting was informal as they had some drinks during the interview and sat in a semi-circle which made the participants feel comfortable during the discussion session. Birmingham (2003) sees focus-group as a moderated informal discussion where a person’s ideas bounce off another’s therefore generating a chain response. The tape recorder was placed in an appropriate place so the discussion could be recorded. Wilkinson and Birmingham (2003) suggest that a focus- group interview encourages people to sit together to talk about challenges that they face, either individually or collectively.
Ten questions were selected from the main research qualitative open-ended questions. The use of the same question in both individual and focus group interview questions increased the trustworthiness of the study because it allowed me to cross check the responses. It was
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interesting to see other participants asked follow- up questions from others that contributed to the richness of the data.
Benefits/strengths of focus-group discussions
Information can be obtained more quickly because only one interview must be scheduled for a group, rather than one for each person. The group setting allows individuals to use the ideas of others as clues to fully elaborate on their own views. Furthermore, a group discussion produces data and insights that would be less accessible without interaction found in a group setting;
listening to others’ verbalized experiences stimulates memories, ideas and experiences in participants. This is also known as the group effect where group members engage in “a kind of
‘chaining’ or ‘cascading’ effect; talk links to, or tumbles out of the topics and expressions preceding it” (Lindlof & Taylor, 2002, p. 182).
Problems experienced through the focus- group interview
The researcher has less control over a group than a one-on-one interview, and thus time can be lost on issues irrelevant to the topic. The data is tough to analyze because the talking is in reaction to the comments of other group members. In this study, I went over the recording several times to capture responses accurately. It is difficult to arrange focus group meetings with participants from different cohort group because of the time table clashes. In this case, the common non-contact period was used which allowed all focus participants to be available.
During focus groups discussions, it was difficult to probe the answers in- depth as can be done in one on one interview due to time constraints. I allowed other members to comment on the issue if there were any added opinions. This type of interview, does however allow participants to listen to each other’s responses which can lead to bias in their own responses. To deal with this situation, participants were given equal chances to respond and were encouraged to comment on responses from others.
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