Talk:Focus group
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Looks suspiciously like a press release from NFO research to me. charlieF 09:25 Mar 20, 2003 (UTC)
- Copied some of the less relevant stuff here:
Potential focus group respondents are invited by e-mail. Those who accept the invitation receive a URL and a password that admits them to a protected area within a website maintained by NFO Research. When they arrive, a trained moderator will conduct the on-line focus group over the Internet.
In NFO's on-line focus groups, when a question is asked of the group, all of the respondents type their responses simultaneously. On-line focus groups may begin with a simple series of text-based questions or they may jump right in to a technical discussion. Using a variety of commercially-available software programs, sophisticated images can be displayed on the respondent's computer screens. These images can take the form of web pages, a photo slide show, storyboards of possible future advertising or even three-dimensional (3-D) graphics.
The need for this new system was identified by Hugh Davis in 1999, and he consequently developed a system and method for conducting focus groups using remotely loaded participants over a computer network. charlieF 09:32 Mar 20, 2003 (UTC)
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- Nah. It's not a press release. These concepts are from the teachings of Hugh Davis, who was awarded a patent for conducting focus groups using remotely loaded participants over a computer network. Like any good innovator, Hugh first acknowledged the state-of-the-art then identified a major problem with it. He has nothing to do with NFO Research. SNowwis
In the world of marketing, such a focus group is apparently an essential tool for acquiring feedback regarding new products.
- The word 'apparently' is there because other ways can be used to gain feedback.
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- That is not a good reason for including the word. Focus goups do not merely appear to be valueable sources of info. They have proved to be very valuable over a quarter of a century. The fact that there are many other sources, even better sources, does not change this. It is more than mere appearence. Maybe "essential tool" is too stong. Maybe "important tool" would be better.- - - user:mydogategodshat
[edit] Narrow and rather misleading article, due to over-emphasis on Marketing applications
The writers on this page don't seem to know that focus groups were developed by two very well known social scientists from Columbia University -- Paul Lazarsfeld and Robert Merton. Lazarsfeld and Merton started their research before World War II, and did important work with focus groups for the military during the war (on topics such as training films for the troops, homefront morale, and the point-system used for determining in the order in which troops would return home at the end of the war).
Ernest Dichter was indeed an important influence on focus groups as they moved into the field of marketing from the 1950's onward. As noted, he is also largely responsible for the psycho-dynamic approach that dominated early marketing uses, but which was almost entirely absent from the original social sciences applications.
Although the article takes the right overall approach by dividing the content between "marketing" and "social sciences," the sole citation in the social sciences section is a general textbook on qualitative research, as opposed to the dozen or more social science books that are exclusively about focus groups.
In addition, locating this article within the "Business and Economics" section is probably a mistake because focus groups, like surveys and participant observation, are basically general purpose research methods that can be applied to any number of substantive topics -- including both topics from both marketing and the social sciences.
Unfortunately, the current articles on both Statistical Surveys and Participant Observation are categorized under Sociology, so I fear that a request to move the article on Focus Groups to that location would only start a "turf war." To my mind, a better suggestion would be to create a category for "Social Science Research Methods" that would include each of those items, plus other topics that are primarily based in social science research. Each of those key articles could then be linked to separate articles on various "disciplinary" uses and adaptations for a particular method.
The bottom line is that this article has limited and even misleading content to its location with a narrow disciplinary context. The best solution would be to create a new article with a broader base, which would also be linked to (among other things) a more specific discussion of the undeniably important uses focus groups in the overall business domain and more specifically in marketing research.
David Morgan <morgand@pdx.edu> —Preceding unsigned comment added by DavidMorgan1950 (talk • contribs) 15:54, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
