What are the pros and cons of focus groups?

Clearly focus groups are not right for every situation. Even beyond the differences between appropriate uses of focus groups versus surveys, there are several pros and cons of focus groups.

Pros of carefully done focus groups

• You gain deeper understanding of complex issues facing your school.

• You get valuable knowledge about why students hold their views - "the reasons behind the reasons."

• Your insights into fuzzy and difficult issues will deepen.

• You will gain access to the words, phrases, and special language students use to talk about school and learning. This makes it easier to communicate effectively about these topics.

• After well-done focus groups, you will leave the participants cheered, energized, and (often) more positive about school and learning, because of the simple power of careful listening.

• By involving students in the early stages of exploration around a topic, you may build ownership for specific changes.

• The people in your school community who learn to conduct focus groups are likely to apply their increased inquiry skills to other aspects of their work and learning.

Cons (reasons focus groups are challenging and may not suit your needs)

• Focus groups require the investment of a lot of human effort if they are to be done correctly.

• Though participants will be carefully and randomly selected, and though you will hear from them in depth, the small numbers in focus groups can be hard to defend to audiences more accustomed to the large sample size of quantitative research.

• If you engage students, educators, parents, or others in focus groups about school topics, you may increase their expectations for change (expectations you may not be able to fulfill).

• Even the best focus group results do not produce change in any magical way. They yield only very good information. Real change still requires applying that information to strategies and actions.

• It usually takes at least two complete experiences with focus group research in order to learn how to do it well.

• People are not experienced with the type of analysis required for focus group research - though they have the skills - and can find the analysis and report writing particularly daunting the first time around.