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8 Analyzing and Reporting Focus Group Findings

You have tape recordings of your focus group sessions. You have written notes of the discussions and notes recorded by the observer about non-verbal cues. You have basic information about the participants from their registration forms. This chapter will discuss transcribing the tapes, organizing the data, and analyzing and reporting the results. It will also briefly describe how focus groups can be used to design further research. Lastly, it will list ways in which you can follow up with the participants in your focus groups, after the sessions, to engage them in your advocacy work.

What is involved in transcribing tapes of the focus group sessions?

First, make back-up copies of the tapes before you give them to a transcription service or your in-house transcriber. Whereas statistical software is useful for organizing and analyzing your data from the registration forms, for transcribing the tapes of the sessions you need only a word processing program like Microsoft Word.

As explained in Chapter Seven, the facilitator will have identified speakers by their first names on the tape and the note taker will have connected the participants to their quotes by use of a code. This approach insures confidentiality because the transcriber can now transcribe the tapes without including the names of the parents. The codes will also help the person analyzing the data match statements of participants to information each of the parents supplied on the registration forms which are coded in the same way. (See next section in this chapter.) In the final report, quotes can then be attributed to a brief profile of the speaker—“a mother of two from Alexandria” or “a father of a toddler in Head Start”—providing a context for the parents’ statements and opinions

How do you analyze the data?

Registration forms. It helps to have access to statistical software such as SPSS or SAS to analyze the information collected on the registration forms. First, put the code you develop for each participant on each registration form. Then, right after the first focus group, you can begin entering registration information into the statistical program to save time later. While the data from these registration forms cannot be used to say anything about a larger population, a profile of session participants will flesh out your analysis of the themes that emerge from the focus group discussions. A separate section of your final report can provide the reader with an overall sense of the population that participated (for example, “50% of participants were working full time” or “25% of children of participants were in center-based care”.)

Transcripts. You need to develop a method to analyze the focus group transcripts. If you think you will be conducting focus group projects fairly often, you might invest in a software program designed for what is known as “qualitative” data analysis. Such programs as NUD*IST, NVivo, or Ethnograph allow the user to edit, code, and link transcripts and other documents in order to identify themes and match quotes with those themes. The software can also link statements made by participants with the attributes collected from the registration forms. (Numerous sites for these software packages can be found on the Internet listed under their names.) Be aware, however, that these relatively new programs can be expensive and they require intensive, specialized training. If you are considering hiring outside researchers, you might ask them whether they use these programs. They make analysis quicker and more efficient, and they also enable far more effective presentations of the findings when you release your report.

If you do not have access to these programs, there are alternative ways to organize the analysis. The following are steps the person doing the analysis of the data can take, based on our experience analyzing data for the child care and child health insurance project. (These steps are written as instructions for whomever you designate to take the lead in analyzing the data and writing the final report.)

• Listen to the tapes. If you have only attended some of the sessions, you will want to listen to the tapes, in addition to reading the transcripts, to pick up on the tone and intensity of the parents’ remarks.
• Read the transcripts. Read through all of the transcripts at least once, preferably at one sitting, highlighting major issue areas and identifying emerging themes.
• Read the focus group notes. Reading the notes taken by the note taker and observer will alert you to nonverbal communication that will help you understand what the parents were trying to convey.
• Organize the information. You might use the search function in your word processing program to identify quotes by theme and place them into your files and folders. This will work at least for your initial organization of the information. However, to be able to easily manipulate the data, you may want to use a system of index cards, color coded for major issues and themes, and cut and paste the relevant quotes you’ve put in your files onto the cards. Beside each quote, write the code for that participant and the date of the focus group so that later, you can refer to information collected from the registration forms. By using index cards, you can sort and reorganize the quotes as new themes emerge or as the order of subjects in the final report changes. You can also sort by focus group session to determine whether there were geographic, racial, or ethnic differences, depending on how your focus groups were organized. The cards become a manual, albeit much less sophisticated, substitute for the qualitative data software packages mentioned above.

Whatever system you choose to organize the data, keep in mind the following points during your analysis:

• Be as objective as you can. Try to maintain your objectivity as you interpret the words of the parents, decide what weight to give different points of view, and draw conclusions and policy implications from the findings. The more objective you can be, the more likely that your findings will be credible.
• Leave behind preconceived ideas or personal opinions. Go into the analysis with an open mind. Avoid lifting quotes out of context, jumping to conclusions before reading all of the transcripts, or giving undue weight to one theme or another because it supports your own agenda.
• When reporting participants’ opinions do not use numbers or percentages. You can report basic information off of the registration form in numbers or percentages—“30% of parents reported having family incomes below the federal poverty level” or “24% used informal child care arrangements.” However, when reporting opinions expressed in the sessions, do not count up how many expressed a particular point of view and report that as a number or percentage. Doing so implies to the reader that the opinions can be projected to a larger population, which is not the case with focus group research (see Chapter One). Instead, say “several participants believed . . .” or “most participants expressed a strong preference for . . .”
• Edit the quotes where necessary. It is O.K. to edit messy or lengthy quotations as long as you are still able to capture the meaning intended by the speaker. For example, in a reference to the experience of dealing with state agencies, one of our focus group participants said,

  My thing is you have to give a lot of information so they can see what you’re making. And what my thing is, it is like they kind of degrade you and make you feel like, kind of like less than a person.
  

Our edit of that statement in the report was,

You have to give a lot of information so they can see what you’re making. It’s like they kind of degrade you and make you feel like less of a person.

What goes into writing the final report?

Before writing the final report of your focus group findings, you should have a clear idea of your primary audience. As you plan the content and format, keep in mind what your audience will need in order to understand and be affected by your findings. Do you want to emphasize quotes from parents? Will the report contain a lengthy analysis of the policy implications of the findings and use a few quotes as illustrations? Will it contain specific policy recommendations?

If you decide your report will rely heavily on quotes from focus group participants, make sure you provide a context for their stories. Otherwise, you may risk having some readers perceive the parents’ concerns as “whining” because of the sheer volume of quotes you have included under each theme. Providing enough explanation about the programs and policies being discussed will lessen this risk. (See Field Note.)

Field Note

State-level policy makers were our primary audience for the findings from our project on child care and child health insurance. We knew from advocates that state policy makers were asking for opportunities to hear directly from parents affected by the policies they were considering. Accordingly, we felt that the most effective approach for this audience was to devote the majority of text to quotes from the focus group participants. Even with this approach, however, we took care to provide background on the issues raised and programs discussed so that the parents’ concerns would be understood and their statements would not be weighed in a vacuum.

Where do you find contextual information for the report?

To provide context, include demographic information about the communities where you conducted focus groups and a description of the programs and policies in your state that were the focus of your research. This is where you make use of the demographic information you have collected and the information given to you by the experts you consulted early in the project (see Chapter Three). Contextual content should be appropriate to the participants’ statements so that the reader can understand the references parents make and the issues they raise. For example, if child care subsidies are a focus of your research and if the parents in some parts of your state speak about being on waiting lists, you will want to describe the eligibility guidelines for the child care subsidy program and where and why there are waiting lists.

Field Note

Our report on child care and child heath insurance included the following sections: Introduction. An executive summary explaining the purpose of the focus groups and stating our over-arching conclusions. Background. A section explaining the programs and policies in Virginia that were the subject of the focus groups and the policy issues raised by the stories we heard from parents. Parents’ voices. The main body of the report, providing a brief account of the major themes and findings with a series of quotes under each. Each quote was followed by an attribution such as “a mother of two in Alexandria.” When the content warranted it, the attributions gave greater detail—“a mother of two on TANF” or “a father of three without health insurance.” Methodology. A section on methodology which included what our research questions were, who constituted our target population and subpopulations, where the focus groups were conducted, how many participants we had in each session, how parents were recruited and screened, and how the sessions themselves were conducted. We also outlined our procedures for protecting confidentiality. Community profiles. A section providing a demographic and economic profile of the communities in which we did the focus groups. Characteristics of focus group participants. A section providing a profile of the focus group participants using data drawn from the registration forms. See our report, A Little Help to Help Us Along: Child Care and Child Health Insurance for Virginia’s Children of the Working Poor, at www.familyassets.net

Once you have drafted the report, make sure others who were present at the focus groups have a chance to review and comment on it. It is also wise to have an expert in each of the programs and policies you discuss in the report read relevant sections for accuracy.

Are there other ways to package the findings of your report?

In addition to publishing a report, there are other effective presentations of the focus group findings, depending on your audience. Here are a few ideas:

• Fact sheets. Prepare single page fact sheets for each theme area that provide background information on the relevant programs and policies, quotes from the parents, and policy recommendations, if you are making them.
• PowerPoint presentations. These could be combined with audio excerpts from parents, provided you have their written consent (see section on confidentiality in Chapter Seven).
• Video productions. Because of confidentiality, these would not include video clips from the focus group discussions. They would include background scenes to illustrate the parents’ stories, with a voiceover discussing the findings. There might be one parent willing to have their story serve as a case study for such a video. You would need to explain to the parent the risks involved in that kind of exposure and make sure they are giving you their informed consent.
• Regional reports. Prepare separate accounts of the focus group findings for different regions of the state. If you have conducted enough focus groups in a particular area, reporting separately on those findings might be more likely to attract the attention of policy makers from that area.
• Hearings or forums. Create opportunities for parents who are willing to come and tell their stories. Again, this would have to be done carefully to make sure that the parents understand any risks involved.

How do you use focus groups to design further research on a topic?

You may have planned all along to use focus groups as a first step in a broader research effort. Or, something may have emerged from the focus groups that interests you in inquiring further on a narrower topic or issue. Once you have completed an analysis of your focus group findings you can use the information to figure out what research you want to do. What additional research questions have emerged from the findings? Was an issue raised about a program or policy which you didn’t anticipate or do you want to be able to bolster your focus group findings with data that allows you to say something about a broader population?

The opportunity to learn from focus groups before investing in a larger research effort is invaluable. By learning more in-depth about the experiences of low-income families, you’ll know what questions to include on a survey, for example, to either test or confirm what you learned from your focus group participants.

Some researchers choose to conduct focus groups both before and after doing their survey or other “quantitative”research.** They use the initial focus groups to direct them in their quantitative research and conduct the others to collect more stories to illustrate what they learned from the surveys or to question parents further about new issues that may have surfaced from their broader research effort.

Combining the two kinds of research (qualitative and quantitative) is a powerful way to reach policy makers with credible findings based on a statistically valid sample of a larger population illustrated and explained by the rich personal stories that come out of focus groups. (See Field Note.)

** Here we are referring to “quantitative” research as the statistical analysis of large data sets (collected from existing large databases or from surveys) in order to determine whether themes discovered in “qualitative” research (e.g., focus groups) reflect the experiences of larger populations.

Field Note

In our special needs project, we learned just how important it is to combine qualitative and quantitative research in order to gain an accurate sense of the challenges faced by low-income families with children with special needs. Data drawn from analysis of the 1996 U.S. Census Bureau Survey of Income and Program Participation, and reported during the time we were conducting our focus groups, revealed little difference between the rates of work force participation of low-income families with children with special needs and those without.*** That finding, taken by itself, might lead policy makers to believe that the system for providing child care to special needs children was working well because parents were able to work. However, that work force participation seemed to be placing an enormous strain on the parents who participated in our focus groups; parents who told us they had no choice but to work in order to make ends meet. Because of a lack of service coordination, and a scarcity of child care programs that will take children with special needs, many parents reported losing multiple jobs, not being able to work full-time despite needing the income and/or having to work nights because no one would care for their children during the day. These focus groups will enable us to tell the stories behind the numbers and they will also help us to know the right questions to ask in our broader quantitative research surveying parents.

How do you engage parents after the focus groups?

For organizations that advocate for families and children, following up with the parents who participate in focus groups makes sense, not only so parents can continue to feel that they are an important part of the process, but also to inform and strengthen the voice of the organization. However, to avoid biasing the discussion in any way, this possibility should be mentioned to the parents only after the focus group session is over.

Some of the ways in which advocacy organizations can engage parents in their work include: ****

• Parent advisory groups. Have parents participate in the governance structure of the organization so their perspectives can be considered as agendas are developed and decisions made.
• Future community surveys. Enlist parents to help plan community surveys on issues raised in the focus group sessions. Parents can also be trained as interviewers to conduct the survey in their neighborhoods.
• Leadership training. Identify and train those parents most likely to act as leaders in their communities.
• Parent participation in government structures. Seek opportunities for parents to serve on government advisory and governance structures.
• Public speaking. Provide occasions for parents to testify, address civic groups, speak to the media, and meet directly with elected officials.

**** Harriet Dichter and Nancy Sconyers. (February, 2002). Parent Engagement in the Context of Child Advocacy Organizations. Unpublished paper. New York, NY: Ford Foundation.

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