Focus group

A focus group is a moderated group conversation of usually six to ten participants, meant to explore language, experience and motives around a topic. Its strength is exploratory: you hear how people talk about a category in their own words, which misunderstandings live there and what reactions a concept provokes. The limits are just as fundamental: participants rationalise behaviour that is largely automatic, group dynamics steer opinions, and six conversations are not a sample. A focus group can generate hypotheses and can never carry decisions; whatever comes out must be tested quantitatively or in real behaviour before budget rides on it.

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