Focus Groups and Community Forums

Social networks of selected "representatives"

are created by organizations to respond to questions, consider various proposals, try out new procedures, or even use products in development. The "group" can include hundreds, if not thousands, of participants.

It is only a short step from personal contacts and key informants to

asking groups for ideas and feedback.

A key to the success of focus groups are

effective moderators who are able to interview and facilitate group process.

Organizations can keep different panels of participants

for different kinds of issues. Discretion among representation keeps this approach in the informal exploratory category of information gathering.

The range of groups runs from

open town meetings (by the White house and candidates for U.S. president) to the highly structured and videotaped focus group (used in both PR and consumer marketing research).

Moderators can have an effect on what and how

the group discusses. Those viewing and interpreting the session filter what is said through their own subjective perceptions.

The major strength of focus groups is

the open, spontaneous, and detailed discussions they generate, even among people who did not know each other before the session began.

The findings of this study found that sincere agency citizen power sharing was more important that the timing of the input.

The findings of this study provide strong empirical support for the conclusion that the true power sharing in the public participation process causes increased levels of satisfaction with the decision-making process and with the final decision reached. At the same time, this study also provides strong empirical evidence that the timing of public participation (early vs. late) in the decision-making process exerts no measurable impact on the process and outcome satisfaction among publics.

Practitioners use focus groups and community forums

to explore how people will react to proposals and to gather information useful for developing questionnaires to be used in more formal research methods.

The USDA Forest Service, the Army Corps of Engineers, and the Environmental protection Agency regularly conduct public meetings and hearings

to get information and reactions to various project and program proposals.

The major uses of focus groups are

to identify and explore issues for further study in formal surveys and to pretest program strategies before full-blown field-testing.

Community input must be sought early and often

to keep agencies responsive to citizen interests.

The results of focus groups cannot be used

to make inferences to a larger population or public because the group is small, selection is usually not truly random, and the group-discussion context introduces an artificial setting. The results are not representative (scientifically) of a public.

Serendipitous findings

Unexpected insights are gained from the sometimes spirited dialogue among participants; but unanticipated reactions may be the best reason for using these informal research methods.

Focus groups represent a more structured approach, including

6 to 12 carefully selected representatives from a target public. They are asked to discuss a specific issue or program proposal in depth. Sessions are videotaped and the recordings are carefully analyzed to catch the smallest detail in comments.