STAGES AND REPORT

WRITING
Inshrah mukhtar 1561
 STAGE 3: FACILITATION

There are three general components in facilitation:

1. Preparation: A team of two people (facilitator and note-taker) should be prepared.

Facilitator should memorize the questions instead of reading and note-taker should write

down feedbacks for efficient analysis. Note-taker should write down quotes, themes,

follow-up questions and big ideas.

2. Pre-session: Opportunity to familiarize with group dynamics. Engage in small talk and

avoid

3. Session: Proceed through questions. Questions are important but be flexible.

 TIPS AND RULES IN FACILITATION:

• Pause, Probe questions, Avoid head nods and reflect.

• Utilize non-verbal communication and attend personality types (experts, dominant

talkers, shy participants and ramblers).

 Rules that must be considered are one person talking at a time, cell phones off,

confidentiality, and TIP (If you interrupt them than you are not being rude. You are

just ensuring that everyone can participate).

 SCRIPT TEMPLATE
• “Hello. My name is INSHRAH. Today we would like to
have a conversation with you about FOCUS GROUP
DESIGN. You can ask anything before main discussion.
• Respond to participant questions.
• “Let’s go over some rules”. Now explain all the rules
that are written in previous slide,
• Ask participants to introduce themselves.
• Now begin the main questions.
• Questions 1-3 (X minutes)
• 1. Question
• Prompt: Question to promote further question
• Probe: Question to examine an issue at a deeper level
• 2. Question
• Prompt: Question to promote further question
• Probe: Question to examine an issue at a deeper level
• 3. Question
• Prompt: Question to promote further question
• Probe: Question to examine an issue at a deeper level
• Closure (X minutes)
• “Are there are final questions? (Respond to questions)
Thank you for participating in focus group today. We are
excited to learn about what you think.
 STAGE 4: ANALYSIS

• Begins after focus group closure. The summary of the

discussion and notes will help in the analysis.

• For each question, summarize the “themes” or “big ideas”

that were discussed. Also observe non-verbal cues. Note
any important quotes.

• Capture the discussion points or any unexpected findings

that did not match with the questions. It can contribute to
understanding of participants about the topic.

• The main key of this stage is data reduction. Create a

concept map. This map will summarize the different
themes originated for a question.
SYSTEMATIC ANALYSIS PROCESS:

 Analysis starts actually during the session. Listen to inconsistent or vague comments, probes
and preference questions. Offer a summary of key questions.

 After the focus group, draw a seating arrangement diagram and conduct facilitator and note-
taker debriefing. Compare focus groups with each other in case of more than 1 focus group.

 After this step, listen to recordings of discussion of individual groups and compare the results
of groups.

 After the comparison, look for emerging themes overall and describe your findings using
diagrams or quotes.

 Finally prepare the report.

ANALYSIS TIPS:
• Always stick to actual words used by
participants.
• Observe the context in which participants are
commenting. It maybe the question or a
comment made by another participant.
• Notice the change in opinion of participant
which maybe due to interaction with others.
• Some questions are extensively discussed and
some comments are more frequent. Keep an
eye on such events.
• Intensity of feelings about a certain topic
should be noticed which is observable due to
tone or pitch of voice.
• Responses that are specific should be given
more weightage than vague comments.
• Always go for big ideas. The co-moderators
or other experts in qualitative analysis can
also review it and verify big ideas.
 STAGE 5: REPORTING

The reporting stage ties all of the previous stages together into a coherent whole.
The factors that should be attended are as follows:
 Decide if report will be in narrative style or bulleted style
 Decide on sequence
 Participant information
 Utilize quotes from focus groups to emphasize points
 Summarize how focus group results align with the focus group purpose
 HOW TO WRITE A REPORT

Cover page Brief description of focus group interviews

Summary Results

Table of contents (optional) Summary of themes

Statement of problem, Key questions and Limitations and Recommendations

Study methods Appendix (copy of questions)

Purpose of study