Session 4

Summarization of Focus Group
Our in class task was to hold a focus group with the fellow students to talk about our reasons for choosing our masters program at California State University, San Bernardino (CSUSB). This is what I learned from this experience.
One thing I learned was that some of us in the focus group had same reasons for choosing CSUSB and I found out others had different reasons. That was one obvious thing I learned from the task, but I also learned different things about focus groups. One detail I learned about focus groups is the amount of discussion and information that can be acquired using this method of analysis. I realized that I could not get the information that I received from the focus group from a survey or an interview. In the focus group we also came up with questions and discussions that revealed more useful information we could use. During the focus group I did notice some things that can make it hard to gather data.
When you have any discussion there are factors that happen out of your control. There are people who control or rule the conversation and I learned ways to keep the conversation going and allowing other participants participate more in the conversation. I also learned that the conservation could go in the wrong direction when you have a focus group. To help the conservation go the way you want, I learned you could give time for each participant to talk or give them the opportunity to pass until they are ready. I also learned that if a conversation does go in the wrong direction that you can and should redirect it to get back to the point of the discussion because these conversations could drag on and get off topic. This is what I have learned from this experience and I am planning to use this method in my thesis project.