Focus Groups in Educational Studies

Özet

Focus groups which have been used generally for the market research in the past are nowbeing frequently used as a data collection method for social sciences. In the case of educationalresearch, the 1990s have seen a reversal of educational researchers’ attitudes towards focus groupswhich are an important research method of discovering participants’ feelings, values, attitudes,reactions and experiences about a topic. However, although it has been realized that focus groupsoffer extremely rich and high quality data to educational researchers, this data collection method hasbeen underused when compared with other qualitative data collection methods such as in-depthinterview and participant observation. This study attempts to emphasize the potential use of focusgroups within educational studies and its importance for enriching educational research by reviewingthe main concepts and main processes of this data collection method.