Focus Groups in Educational Studies

Yıl 2007, Cilt: 3 Sayı: 1, 0 - , 16.01.2014

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Öz

Focus groups which have been used generally for the market research in the past are now
being frequently used as a data collection method for social sciences. In the case of educational
research, the 1990s have seen a reversal of educational researchers’ attitudes towards focus groups
which are an important research method of discovering participants’ feelings, values, attitudes,
reactions and experiences about a topic. However, although it has been realized that focus groups
offer extremely rich and high quality data to educational researchers, this data collection method has
been underused when compared with other qualitative data collection methods such as in-depth
interview and participant observation. This study attempts to emphasize the potential use of focus
groups within educational studies and its importance for enriching educational research by reviewing
the main concepts and main processes of this data collection method.

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