A focus on food serves as food for thought:

Is that moderator a good focus group researcher?

Editor's note: Jonathan E. Brill, Ph.D., is principal of Next Generation Research, Solon, Ohio.

The popularity of focus group research is understandable enough. Managers are often more comfortable with seeing, hearing or reading the experiences, beliefs and emotions expressed directly by respondents than they are with the conceptual and statistical abstractions of survey research. In addition, the experience of observing a live focus group session can be quite enjoyable: the viewing environment is comfortable; amenities are provided; and the proceedings are not only of professional interest, but they can be unpredictable in content and, quite often, delightfully lively.

Those facts can sometimes make it difficult for managers to remain mindful that each session represents a very serious endeavor - the collection of research data useful to support marketing and business decisions.

For this reason, managers may become impressed with a moderator solely because he or she seems to have a knack for generating particularly lively sessions. However, far more important than the liveliness of sessions is the study's overall success or failure in providing the research user with information that truly assists in the marketing or business decision making process.

Theoretical expertise

Eliciting enthusiastic involvement among focus group participants is an important and highly desirable moderator quality and, certainly, some degree of skill in this area is required. However, unless the only responsibility the moderator will have in the research process will be to conduct the session(s), it is not the only important skill. In fact, if the moderator is to be involved in decisions related to sample development, topical content of the session(s), and/or analysis and reporting of results, then this ability is not even the most important one to consider.

In cases where the moderator is to play a central role in the research process, having a moderator with genuine expertise in focus group research design and sample development, group process and interaction theory, and qualitative data analysis is essential. Without this expertise, the organization underwriting the costs of the study assumes a considerably increased risk of experiencing one or more undesirable and potentially counterproductive research outcomes, such as:

(1) identification or specification of a sample population that is inappropriate or less useful than it could have been;

(2) use of screening interviews that fail to be sensitive to the need for homogeneity among participants;

(3) creation of a screening interview offering little capacity to discriminate between desirable and undesirable prospective participants;

(4) development of a poorly conceived discussion guide;

(5) poor data reporting;

(6) application of improper, overly crude or otherwise inappropriate data analysis methods;

(7) failure to discriminate between those elements of the group discussion representing artifacts of group development processes from those representing bona fide research findings; and

(8) development of unsound or otherwise inappropriate research conclusions and business or marketing recommendations.

When one or more of these problems surface, the value of the research is compromised. In some cases, this compromise can be so great that the research effort is reduced to a valueless exercise that wastes time and money and produces distorted findings that may push management to make unhelpful and/or costly business decisions.

A suggested approach for finding the required expertise

Given this, the question naturally arises: How is a research buyer to identify a moderator with the necessary expertise? The soundest approach, of course, is to ask prospective moderators several questions that will effectively reveal his or her theoretical knowledge of social development and process - including individual role behaviors - in the context of task oriented small groups, such as focus groups. Unfortunately, research buyers rarely have sufficient theoretical background and training in these issues to make this feasible; needed is a simple, more universally manageable approach. One such solution is to ask about - or observe - how the moderator deals with serving food and beverage for the participants of dinner time focus groups!

This seemingly offbeat suggestion has validity because the theoretical underpinnings of the focus group methodology present unambiguous implications regarding the proper management of refreshments for group participants. Providing food and drink serves two purposes, one practical and one theoretical. The practical purpose is to provide an attendance incentive for respondents. The theoretical purpose - and, arguably, the more important one - is to provide a means through which group development processes may be stimulated and fostered. Indeed, the whole point of conducting a focus group, rather than a series of focused or in-depth individual interviews, is to benefit from the insights that naturally arise from task oriented group processes.

Meat & potatoes: accomplishing group goals

Keep in mind that a focus group session consists of a collection of individuals who, typically, have been recruited in a manner that makes it likely that the group members won't already know each other. Furthermore, each member of the group is informed that the purpose of the session is to explore issues relevant to some real or potential product or service of interest, with the specific tasks being suggested and managed by the moderator during the session.

The presence of a group task requires group members to develop a shared commitment to achieving the group's goals. Such commitment requires the group to bond, to build some degree of cohesiveness among its members. Yet, the lack of mutual familiarity among participants creates social tensions which work against interpersonal bonding and group cohesiveness. This sense of common purpose, always present in constructive focus groups, can be achieved only through social interactions, with self-disclosures offered by individual members being especially productive in fostering interpersonal bonds and building unspoken commitments to the stated goals among members of the group.

The outcomes from the group's efforts to achieve its shared tasks or goals represent the findings produced by focus group research. These outcomes are what doing focus groups is all about - the meat and potatoes, so to speak. Without bonding among group members, the group discussion will be at best slow and tortured; at worst, the results will be contrivances that lack validity. In either case, research results will be disappointing and of limited usefulness; in the latter case, much of the data is likely to be misleading.

Appetizer: getting acquainted

Food is a helpful and important component of the focus group experience because it creates opportunities for social interaction. A common meal creates a pleasant social atmosphere within which it is difficult for attendees to remain isolated from the others present. In other words, it simply is not possible to ignore requests to pass the salt! In this way, food and beverage give rise to social bonding and break down inhibitions which might otherwise prevent group members from making the psychological commitment to help attain the group's common purpose.

The effectiveness of using food to induce social intercourse is greatly diminished when the meal is served before the session and outside the interview room. This approach reduces the opportunities for striking up a conversation. For example, it would only be natural for requests for condiments or other embellishments to be directed toward the focus facility staff rather than to another group participant. Furthermore, the waiting area lacks the ambiance of social intimacy that a common dining table (i.e., the conference table) provides. Thus, much in the same way that an appetizer creates anticipation for the gustatory experiences to follow in a formal dinner, a shared meal at the beginning of a focus group session is an ice breaker that allows respondents to establish a basis for coordinated and cooperative behavior.

Dessert: interpreting results

For this reason, the many moderators who either permit or instruct the focus group facility staff to provide refreshments to group members before the session and/or outside the meeting room demonstrate a lack of familiarity with and appreciation of the underlying theory of the focus group methodology. And, if they do not understand the underlying theory, they cannot have the expertise necessary to exploit group processes in ways likely to cull relevant and helpful information during the session. Perhaps more importantly, they are unlikely to know how to separate discussion elements representing the group development process from those representing valid research data.

This is not to suggest that any moderator who manages respondent refreshments properly necessarily must be a good and qualified professional; surely it is possible to develop a habit for serving dinnertime respondents food during the session without an appreciation of why this procedure is a desirable and useful one. Likewise, a knowledgeable moderator occasionally might allow food to be served to respondents before the session, judging other considerations to outweigh the advantages of serving food during the session.

Nevertheless, a general proclivity for insisting that food and beverage be served during the session does stand as an indicator of moderator qualifications. Avoiding the use of moderators who generally allow or encourage refreshments to be served apart from the session may help ensure that focus group research provides valid and productive results - that your organization gets its "just desserts."