{"title":"Off track or on point? Side comments in focus groups with teens.","authors":"Lindsay C Sheppard, Rebecca Raby","doi":"10.1177/14687941231176931","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Side comments and conversations in focus groups can pose challenges for facilitators. Rather than seeing side comments as problematic behavior or \"failed\" data, we argue that they can add to and deepen analyses. Drawing on focus group data with grade nine students from a study on early work, in this methodological paper we discuss three patterns. First, side comments have highlighted where participants required clarification, and illustrated their views and questions about the research process. Second, side comments added new data to our analysis, including personal reflections, connections to others' comments, and information about participants' uncertainties about the research topics. Third, these comments offered insight into peer relations and dynamics, including participants' reflections on age, and how they deployed gender relations in their discussions. Provided that their use fits within established ethical protocols, we argue that there is a place for attention to side comments, especially in focus group research with young people where adult-teen hierarchies and peer dynamics might lead young people to engage more with peers than directly respond to researchers' questions.</p>","PeriodicalId":48265,"journal":{"name":"Qualitative Research","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.2000,"publicationDate":"2024-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11161323/pdf/","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Qualitative Research","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14687941231176931","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2023/5/29 0:00:00","PubModel":"Epub","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"SOCIAL SCIENCES, INTERDISCIPLINARY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Side comments and conversations in focus groups can pose challenges for facilitators. Rather than seeing side comments as problematic behavior or "failed" data, we argue that they can add to and deepen analyses. Drawing on focus group data with grade nine students from a study on early work, in this methodological paper we discuss three patterns. First, side comments have highlighted where participants required clarification, and illustrated their views and questions about the research process. Second, side comments added new data to our analysis, including personal reflections, connections to others' comments, and information about participants' uncertainties about the research topics. Third, these comments offered insight into peer relations and dynamics, including participants' reflections on age, and how they deployed gender relations in their discussions. Provided that their use fits within established ethical protocols, we argue that there is a place for attention to side comments, especially in focus group research with young people where adult-teen hierarchies and peer dynamics might lead young people to engage more with peers than directly respond to researchers' questions.
期刊介绍:
Qualitative Research is a fully peer reviewed international journal that publishes original research and review articles on the methodological diversity and multi-disciplinary focus of qualitative research within the social sciences. Research based on qualitative methods, and methodological commentary on such research, have expanded exponentially in the past decades. This is the case across a number of disciplines including sociology, social anthropology, health and nursing, education, cultural studies, human geography, social and discursive psychology, and discourse studies.