Focus group project
On the 6th February, I moderated a focus group consisting of all the other 2018 MARC students. I was assisted by Thandi Ndaba whose role was to summarise the discussions both in writing and verbally to the class during the focus group session. The focus group was held in the afternoon at 1:30 pm and lasted for 45 minutes. The class agreed that it was not necessary to move furniture into a circular shape as they all knew each other and felt comfortable talking. The focus group was also recorded on a portable recorder after the group gave permission for the session to be recorded.
The scenario presented by Mrs Erasmus was that we were a fictitious research company tasked with obtaining information about the current problem of special leave in the context of the Master of Arts in Research Consultation (MARC) programme. The MARC programme consists of a classroom-based learning programme that addresses the needs of the HPSCA for the training of registered research psychologists and stipulates certain requirements in terms of activities completed and hours presented in the classroom.
In the context of this study, ‘management’ refers to Lecturers Programme Coordinators and admin staff directly responsible for the MARC programme and ‘students’ refers to the registered participants of the MARC course.
The management of the MARC programme have not been able to enforce a consistent policy applied to special leave, causing problems in some cases, in attaining HPSCA requirements and in other cases causing discontent because of the inconsistent application of the policy.
In order to formulate an equitable policy that addresses both the needs of management and the needs of the students, it was felt that a focus group should be undertaken consisting of MARC students. It was hoped that by undertaking a focus group among cohorts who know each other well, discussion would be encouraged, and issues and opinions could come to light that would not be discovered through other means such as a questionnaire or individual interviews.
Personal Observations:
This was quite an easy group to mentor a focus group with mainly because they were all aware of the problem, its effect on them as students and they felt comfortable talking in the group. Mrs Erasmus recused herself from observing the focus group which was a good thing as the discussion would not have been as open or lively if a member of staff were present.
I had no difficulty getting everyone to express their opinions, and the few people that were quiet did not hesitate to speak once I asked them directly what they thought. At times the discussion veered off the topic but it was very easy to bring them back to discussing the ‘special leave’ subject. I also found that the few digressions there were actually added to the topic in an indirect way (for example, some discussion centred around the large amount of work that was involved in the course which led on to a discussion of what the legal requirements were for registration with the HPCSA and ultimately, the lack of communication of these specific requirements by management to students who felt that by knowing these requirements, the concept of special leave as understood by management could perhaps become more acceptable).
It was difficult to remain objective within the role of moderator and found myself referring to the group as ‘we’ on occasion.
Besides the expected experience that was obtained from moderating a focus group, there are certain things I would have done differently.
The first thing is that I would have made more of an effort of looking into the HPCSA requirement before the focus group commenced which meant I could have shared with the group what the HPCSA requirements are and thereby clarified part of the confusion that the group members expressed.
The second thing I would have done is given Thandi more of a voice to support me in the summarising and clarifying participants’ narratives. The summaries she did give were very useful to me when it came to reviewing participants’ opinions
Documentation attached to this report:
Preparation for the focus group:
- Why was the focus group conducted?
- Invitation and consent form
- Script for conducting focus group
- Questions to be asked during the focus group
Conducting the focus group
- Notes on the discussions during the focus group
- Report with findings and recommendations sent to Mrs Erasmus