Focus Groups

About three weeks ago I conducted a focus group but it is only now that I find the time to write about it. The group was made up of five musical theatre professionals at various stages in their careers. The process proved to be extremely interesting and I have learnt many things which I hope to outline in the following blog.

I approached the focus group in a very unstructured way. Instead of having a series of questions ready to put to the group I asked one main question at the beginning and then tried to guide the conversation to keep it vaguely on topic. Were I to attempt a focus group again I think I would prepare much more. I would have a list of important topics that I wanted to cover. There were times that the conversation naturally dried up and I would have been able to move it forward much more easily if I'd had a list in front of me. A list would also ensure that I covered all the necessary areas of the topic to help supply needed information.

The question I asked was 'What do you think makes a musical theatre performer successful?' I am interested in looking into the way musical theatre performers are trained and seeing what demands are made of them in the industry. It occurred to me that if I wanted to examine whether a particular way of training helped the success of a musical theatre performer then I would also need to examine what people within the industry defined as success.

The conversation covered many different areas of what people think contribute towards a persons level of success. As I mentioned before the group was made up of people at different points in their careers. A couple were seasoned professionals and one was yet to train. What I found particularly interesting is that people's perception of what constituted success changed with age and experience. It made me realise the importance in having a true cross section of the population (in this case musical theatre professionals) in the focus group. It is by having this diversity that contrasting ideas and perspectives come out and can be argued. I had a good age and experience range but I only had one woman to five men (including myself) and I think it should have been more balanced.

The person who had yet to train saw success in a very black and white way. If you worked in the West End in lots of different musicals you were successful and if you didn't then you were less so. The older members of the group were much less certain. Perhaps because they have more experience of the reality of the situation or perhaps because they didn't want to be judged on their own careers. The older members of the group felt that many aspects contributed to a persons level of success. They did feel that the consistency of employment did play it's part but that the variety of jobs was less important. If someone works in one show for five years are they less successful than someone who works in five shows over five years? They also felt that happiness was a very important part of a persons success. If you worked consistently but hated every minute they felt you were unsuccessful.

An interesting point that came up is that 'personal success' (the way you judge yourself) is different from success (how you are seen by others). One of the group gave a very good example of this. When working on a previous show they were asked to swing some of the dance tracks even though they aren't really a dancer. They agreed thinking they would never go on but eventually they did. They managed to get through the whole number without making a mistake and they viewed this as a personal success. They did however feel that had anyone watched who really knew about dance then that person would have found the performance unsuccessful.

This idea made us all reevaluate the question. We didn't want to admit it to ourselves but when looking at performers who are unknown to you their level of happiness is irrelevant to the way you view their success. Mainly because you have no way of judging it. If they have worked consistently, particularly in certain types of jobs you view them as successful.

We all realised that we were much harsher in judging others (particularly those people we didn't know) than we were in judging ourselves. This made me realise that when conducting and analysing a focus group you have to be aware of the personal biases of the group members, much as you would if you were reviewing a piece of literature written by them.

I found the focus group to be an interesting way of exploring ideas and considering things from different sides. It helped me to really explore the idea and people's views on it and raised issues that I had never previously thought of. The problem I found with it is that there was very little consensus on what people thought. The group was small which meant everyone's opinions were heard but people generally stuck to their initial ideas meaning that one viewpoint never had a majority.

I definitely extended my understanding of the issue but I don't think I am any nearer finding the 'answer' I was looking for. What has happened is that I am now in a more informed position to compare and contrast people's ideas and to from some of my own. I am starting to understand that qualitative data collection is not about finding conclusive 'answers' but is instead about mapping varying view points on a subject to give a clearer understanding of the whole.