Focus Groups (Online)

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Contents

Why Online Focus Groups?

  1. Easier Recruiting: One can recruit from across the country, rather than just locally.
  2. More Representative: A larger recruitment pool aids in achieving a more diverse sample.
  3. More Convenient: Subjects can participate at their own computers on their own time (i.e., asynchronous participation); there is no need to sync everybody's schedules.
  4. Less Waste: There's no need to buy lunch/dinner for the participants.

Recruitment

1. Post recruitment messages on relevant bulletin boards.

Note that it is important to check out the policies of individual bulletin boards before posting recruitment messages; some organizations (e.g., AARP) do not allow recruiting on their boards, even for academic purposes. Here is a sample message:

Clinical Tools, Inc., a medical education company based in Chapel Hill, NC, is designing a website for older adults with depression (and their caregivers). We currently are recruiting participants for an online focus group that will provide feedback to help us build the best website possible. If you are an older adult (55+) diagnosed with depression and if you are interested in participating, please e-mail __________ at _____@__________.___ (and put "Senior Study" in the subject line). Compensation will be provided.

This project is funded by the National Institutes of Health (Grant # __________).

2. Send recruitment messages to local chapters of relevant national organizations (e.g., NAMI, Mental Health America).

Helpful lists of such chapters are available at SAMSHA's Mental Health Services Locator. Here is a sample message:

Dear __________,

I am coordinating a National Institutes of Health-funded study on senior depression and am recruiting participants for an online focus group. I am writing to see whether you had a listserv on which I could announce this study or whether you would be willing to forward this announcement to your colleagues and constituents. (For reference, I am posting the text below.) I would appreciate any help your organization could provide. Thank you very much for your consideration!

3. Aim for ten subjects.

4. Send a screening questionnaire to each respondent in order to make sure that he/she is qualified to participate.

Clinical Tools employees: for a sample questionnaire (plus accompanying e-mail), visit the following folder on the S drive -
S:\QArchive\Consumer\Closed\SeniorDepression\Evaluation\FocusGroup-Online\1-Seniors\Forms

5. Send informed consent forms to each respondent and ask him/her to reply with "I confirm my participation" in the body of the e-mail.

For a sample form (plus accompanying e-mail), visit the following folder on the S drive:
S:\QArchive\Consumer\Closed\SeniorDepression\Evaluation\FocusGroup-Online\1-Seniors\Forms

Set-up

1. Make sure that you have a "Clinical Tools" account on Yahoo!.

This is the account to which you should log-in when setting up and moderating the focus group.

2. Set up the focus group itself.

  • Go to Yahoo! Groups and click on "create a group," "start a group now," or whatever text they're using at the moment.
  • Choose the appropriate categories/subcategories for your group. For example, a focus group on Alzheimer's caregiving would be listed under Health & Wellness > Seniors > Alzheimer's Disease.
  • Customize the group so that it is both a private and limited experience ("limited" in the sense that users can't fiddle with extraneous features, like photos). Customization options include the following:
    • The group is unlisted.
    • People can join only with the approval of the moderator.
    • Only group members can read/post messages (private discussion group).
    • Messages are delivered immediately.
    • Messages are delivered to all group members.
    • There are no web features (e.g., photos); the group serves as a mailing list only.
  • Within the focus group itself, click on "Management," then "Messages," then "Edit" Posting and Archives. Choose "Access - Members" under "Archive Options" — this will allow all members to see each others' messages.

3. Set up pseudonymous Yahoo! accounts for each subject.

Go to the Random Word Generator or another similar site and keep refreshing the page until you retrieve four words. The first two words will form your pseudonymous user name, the third will form your Yahoo! password, and the fourth will form your Hotmail password (see below). Note: passwords need to have at least six characters; thus, you may need to refresh the page, if the Random Word Generator gives you one with fewer than six.

By the way, there are three reasons to use a random word generator for this step:

  1. Generic names like "participant1," "participant2," etc. probably are taken already on such a voluminous site as Yahoo!.
  2. User names should differ significantly from each other, so that each subject has his/her own identity.
  3. As much as possible, the moderator should take him/herself out of the naming process, so that it can be "random" (though, admittedly, one most likely will need to make some editorial decisions due to (a) inappropriate names that are generated and (b) passwords that are too short. (To see a very geeky, but very cool, site devoted to the science of high-level randomness, check out RANDOM.ORG.)
Set up a new Yahoo! Account with this user name. Almost any Yahoo!-related page will have "Sign In" and "Sign Up" links. Here are some things to keep in mind when doing this:
  • Unclick the checkbox for Yahoo! Mail since you won't want subjects to use that service.
  • Since this is a pseudonymous account, you'll need to set up a bogus security question and answer. For SeniorDepression, I chose "What was the name of your first school?" as the question and typed in "University of Pittsburgh" as the answer.
  • For the birthday, I chose January 1, 1992. You'll want to make the subject "old enough" for Yahoo!'s rules (I think that the minimum age requirement is 13 or 14).
  • For the ZIP code, I just used Clinical Tools' (27516).
  • For the alternate e-mail, I chose the user's dummy Hotmail account. Note: You will need to set this up before completing the Yahoo! registration (see below).
Make sure the pseudonymous account has "joined" the Yahoo! Group. When completing the group registration, make sure that you select the "Choose Web Only for Message Delivery" option, since subjects will participate only via the website (and not via e-mail).

4. Set up a dummy Hotmail account (same user name, different password) for each user.

For the SeniorDepression study, here are some specific bits of information that I entered for each account:
  • For the security question, I chose "Mother's birthplace," and the answer I typed in was "University of Pittsburgh."
  • For the birth year, I chose 1988 (I think Hotmail's minimum age requirement is 18).
  • For the state and ZIP code, I chose North Carolina and 27516.

Yahoo! requires that each account have an associated e-mail address, whether through Yahoo! Mail or another service. For SeniorDepression, I initially was going to use my Clinical Tools address for all of the pseudonymous accounts; however, Yahoo! does not approve of one e-mail address being associated with multiple accounts. Thus, I set up a dummy Hotmail account for each subject, using the same user name but a different password so that he/she couldn't start e-mailing from that account (why he/she would, I don't know, but it's better to be safe than sorry).

An alternative to the Hotmail accounts would be dummy CTI e-mail accounts (e.g., focusgroup1@clinicaltools.com, focusgroup2@clinicaltools.com, etc.) that would redirect to a real CTI account (presumably the account of the employee moderating the group).

Implementation

1. Send instructions regarding how to participate.

Here is a sample instruction e-mail:

Dear __________,

Thank you for agreeing to participate in our online focus group. We hope to use your feedback to develop a website that helps people find information about depression among older adults.

I will be posting four general questions throughout the course of this study, and I ask that you respond to each one. In addition, I highly encourage you to revisit the site regularly and see what your fellow participants have posted. Please feel free to respond to others' comments as well as to the original question; we want this online focus group to be as interactive as possible.

Please note that we want your honest opinions; there are no right or wrong answers. If you disagree with one of your fellow participants, feel free to state that, but I ask that you do so respectfully.

This study will last approximately one to two weeks. If you have any questions about the study itself, feel free to e-mail me directly (_____@__________.___).

We have created a pseudonymous Yahoo! Account for you; your user name is __________, and your password is __________. When signing into the focus group, please use this account; if you have your own Yahoo! Account do NOT use it.

You may notice that your user name is a bit unusual; that is because we created it using a random-word generator. This is to help ensure confidentiality, and we encourage you to remain anonymous by not signing your messages/posts or by signing only your assigned user name. In addition, you may have noticed that there is a Hotmail address associated with your pseudonymous Yahoo! Account. That is simply for administrative reasons and will be deleted upon this study's completion. Please do not try to log into the Hotmail account as it has a completely separate password.

I already have posted the first question. Thus, please go to the focus group's Web page (http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/__________/) sign in, and get started!

Thank you again for your participation. I look forward to an interesting and lively discussion!

2. Send reminders to subjects who do not respond to a given question.

Send a reminder 24 to 48 hours after said question has been posted, but do not send more than one.

3. Feel free to insert a secondary question or clarification within a thread, if warranted.

Close-out

  1. Change all users' passwords in order to prevent extraneous participation.
  2. Copy the transcripts from Yahoo! Groups into OpenOffice Writer in order to facilitate easy analysis. For an example of a focus group transcript, visit the following folder on the S drive - S:\QArchive\Consumer\Closed\SeniorDepression\Evaluation\FocusGroup-Online\1-Seniors\Transcript-Results
  3. Delete both pseudonymous accounts and the focus group itself in order to protect confidentiality.
  4. Pay all participants. Make sure that you record an adequate amount of participant information for the Admin Team, should they need to track down a subject (e.g., for non-deposit of check). For an example of a participant spreadsheet, visit the following folder on the S drive - S:\QArchive\Consumer\Closed\SeniorDepression\Admin\Budget
  5. Write a report, analyzing the results. For an example of a focus group report, visit the following folder on the S drive - S:\QArchive\Consumer\Closed\SeniorDepression\Evaluation\FocusGroup-Online\1-Seniors\Transcript-Results

Miscellaneous Issues

  • I read Yahoo!'s Terms of Service, and it did not appear that our using Yahoo! Groups for research purposes posed any problems.
  • The only "sketchy" aspect about this process is the fake birthdates, cities, and ZIP codes that we enter when we set up the pseudonymous Yahoo! accounts and the dummy Hotmail accounts.
  • A couple of folks probably will be confused at first and make a mistake in posting (e.g., they'll click on the "e-mail" link, rather than the "Reply" button, and not realize that their message is going to someone's dummy Hotmail account!). For most folks, a quick message explaining the error will suffice.
  • During the SeniorDepression study, one of the participants blew her cover by altering her Yahoo! account so that she could receive and respond to posts via her work e-mail. Thus, while her name remained confidential, her real e-mail was out there for all to see. Since the subject did that voluntarily (for the sake of convenience), there were no IRB issues to worry about. However, keep in mind that such an event could arise (though it's not likely).

References

  • Kenny AJ. Interaction in cyberspace: an online focus group. J Adv Nurs. 2005 Feb;49(4):414-22. PubMed Entry
  • Schneider SJ, Kerwin J, Frechthling J, Vivari BA. Characteristics of the discussion in online and face-to-face focus groups. Social Science Computer Review. 2002;20(1):31-42. Sage Journals Online Entry
  • Underhill C, Olmsted MG. An experimental comparison of computer-mediated and face-to-face focus groups. Social Science Computer Review. 2003;21(4):506-512. Sage Journals Online Entry
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