Benefits of focus groups

Focus groups are really useful for obtaining several perspectives on the same issue, for exploring the degree of consensus within a group and to gaining insights into people’s shared understandings of everyday life. They can be used to get input into design, feedback on performance, and establish buy-in to a scheme. Focus groups that meet on several occasions can help develop a sense of ownership of an issue over time.

Focus groups are particularly useful when there are power differences between participants and decision makers or professionals because they allow participants to take the initiative in terms of what is said and the language used to say it. They are also particularly useful for obtaining data from children, young people and adults with low levels of literacy.

Focus groups can be empowering for participants in providing opportunities to be involved in the decision making process, in valuing them as experts and in enabling them to work collaboratively with other experts. Focus groups are most successful when they make participants feel they can make a difference.

Focus groups allow participants to ask questions of each other and to re-evaluate and reconsider their own understandings. Participants are able to build on one another's responses and come up with ideas they might not have thought of in a one to one interview. During the discussion, they can act as checks and balances on each other; identifying factual errors or extreme views. Focus groups can tell you a lot about how individuals are influenced by others in a group.

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