Remote focus groups
Remote focus groups are group discussions held online instead of in a physical facility, either live, by video or text chat, or over several days on an asynchronous discussion board. A moderator guides participants in different locations through a topic.
How it works
Live remote groups meet on video or in a text chat, with observers watching from their own locations and the session recorded. Asynchronous groups run on a discussion board. In one health study by Gordon and colleagues, each group lasted four consecutive days, moderators posted two prompts a day, and 66 participants from 25 US states answered when it suited them.
Guest and colleagues compared face-to-face, video, live-text and asynchronous-text groups, assigning each participant to a format by a rolling sequence at enrollment and holding the moderator and question guide constant. The visual formats produced more words, but the themes did not differ significantly across the four. Text-based online groups were more likely to contain a dissenting opinion, a result the authors ask readers to treat with caution. Without travel, video was the most expensive format; once estimated travel was counted, in-person groups cost the most.
A worked example
A snack company runs 6 remote focus groups with 6 participants each across 4 states in 2 days, a schedule that would need 2 weeks of travel in person. The groups agree on the winning flavor, and 3 groups independently raise the same concern about the pack size.
Related
Automate this in Pulse
Where a remote focus group can let two talkative voices carry the call, Pulse runs a one-to-one interview with each participant, so every view reaches the themes in that person's own words.