‘Talk amongst yourselves’: designing and evaluating a novel remotely-moderated focus group methodology for exploring group talk

Abstract

The use of a moderator has become ubiquitous when using focus groups for social science research. While a skilled moderator can facilitate discussion, we argue that, in some instances, moderators can potentially hinder the generation of the types of group discussions that academic researchers may seek to access. In this paper we outline some of the challenges associated with moderated focus groups and propose a complimentary methodology: a remotely-moderated focus group that can help overcome some of the problems a physically present moderator might create, while still incorporating many of the benefits of moderation. Using two remotely-moderated focus group designs–one exploring dietary identity and the other exploring gendered experiences of sexual harassment–we provide evidence for the efficacy of this design in multiple contexts. We evaluate its ability to produce high quality conversational data and suggest directions for future research exploring the utility of this methodology.