Focus groups, whether in person or online, are the mainstay of qualitative research tools. Advanis has three team members, Lori Reiser, Nicolas Toutant, and Julie Simard, who have each moderated many focus groups during their tenure with Advanis. Sometimes we work with close, trusted partners with specialized sector or geographic reach to moderate our groups, and spend our time designing the discussion guides and analyzing results – we have extensive experience partnering with other researchers as needed.
Focus groups are excellent in gaining further insight into findings and/or to allow for better focus on the direction that quantitative data collection should take. Focus groups are more costly than other methods of qualitative data collection, so we recommend their use carefully and very deliberately.