Research Methodology: Focus Groups and Expert Interviews

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Table of Contents

Research Methodology
Focus Groups
Expert Interviews
Individual Depth Interviews
Projective Techniques
Quantitative Techniques
References

Research Methodology

The rationale in choosing a research design can be seen based on the ability to measure what is intended to be measured. In that regard, another factor contributing to the selection of the methodology of research is based on the type of data to be measured.

The main data collected in this research can be seen of both qualitative and quantitative nature, and thus, a mixed design will be used. The qualitative part of the design is selected based on its ability to detect minor problems which cannot be detected by quantitative design, and accordingly, the addition of the qualitative part can enrich the pattern displayed in the quantitative (Proctor 2005). Accordingly, the benefit of combining both methods in marketing perspective is specifically justified, considering argument that a merger of the best of both worlds rather than a one-sided acquisition will add substantial synergy to research in marketing (Gummesson 2005).

The qualitative research in marketing can be defined as the one examining the attitudes, feelings and motivations of products users (Proctor 2005). Such qualitative data is used to investigate a particular marketing phenomenon in depth (Varki, Cooil, and Roland 2000).

The qualitative methods used in this study comprise of several techniques, each representing a particular purpose, integrated into the scope of the research. In Shao (1999), the author indicated techniques which are common to qualitative researches such as interviews, focus groups, and projective techniques (Shao 1999 ). The aforementioned techniques will be implemented in the present study, and covered in the following sections. The interview technique was divided into two corresponding sections, which expert interviews and individual in-depth interviews.

Focus Groups

Focus groups are one of the exploratory techniques in research (Wrenn, Stevens, and Loudon 2007), which is defined as discussions where a number of volunteering participants are invited to come to discuss a particular subject matter in a focused, yet open and free-flowing manner for a limited time, normally for about two hours (Moisander and Valtonen 2006). Focus group can be seen as a persistent technique in marketing, which was, embraced by the business marketers in the 1950, and still common today, with most marketing research companies using the terms focus groups and qualitative researches interchangeably (Levy 2005).

The rationale of using focus group in this case can be seen in the ability of such technique of revealing consumers needs, perceptions, [and] attitudes (Wrenn, Stevens, and Loudon 2007). Focus groups allow conceptualizing abstract notions, and making them real, assessable and measurable. The qualitative research in general is known for the use of small samples and in that regard, such characteristic is specifically true for focus groups, usually held with eight to twelve participants (Wrenn, Stevens, and Loudon 2007). Focus groups are similar to other research techniques, in terms of clear vision of a purpose, and as the title implies, it should have a focus and a clearly identifiable agenda (Stewart, Shamdasani, and Rook 2007).

A single group was composed for this study, comprising of 5 participants. The selection criteria for the participants were them being frequent customers of fast food restaurants, and thus, having the ability to provide their perceptions, opinions and experiences for analysis.

The researcher personally moderated the focus groups, with a predefined plan for discussion. The general focus of the discussion was based on the researchs problem statement and questions, initially taking a free form, and gradually taking a more focused approach. The discussions were held in a friendly environment in two individual sessions, each lasting for about 60 minutes. The discussion presented mostly similar opinions on the fast-food restaurant preferences, with the most frequent interaction being snowballing, a comment by one individual often triggers a chain of responses from the other participants (Stewart, Shamdasani, and Rook 2007).

It can be stated that the focus group was beneficial in terms investigating the similarity of themes in participants responses, and the underlying causes for their perceptions. A complete description of the participants responses, the findings and the interpretations are covered in the results section of the research.

Expert Interviews

Expert interviews are qualitative techniques which are mainly related to clarification and review, rather than an individual source of data for the research (Kolb 2008). In that regard, the main area of clarification was related to the construction of the quantitative part of the research and the revision of the problem statement. The rationale for conducting expert interviews in general can be seen through getting a professional opinion from an insider in the industry related to the subject of the research.

Accordingly, the interviews differ from those conducted with the participants, in terms time and place, as the experts are usually busy professionals, and thus, the time for the interview is usually short (Kolb 2008). In that regard, the role of expert interviews can be paralleled to that of literature reviews, where both serve as the basis for selecting and identifying relevant factors for investigation (Albers 2009). Following the latter, the scope of this research implies that one of the areas of focus is the satisfaction of consumers in fast food restaurant. The elements, subject to satisfaction measurement can be extracted from expert interviews (Albers 2009). Researchers striving for operationalising their constructs, try to include as many aspects as possible, which a task largely facilitated through expert interviews (Albers 2009).

The experts for the subject of this research were chosen from the industry of fast food. Thus, two interviewees were selected, a marketing managers of a fast food restaurant chain and a PR manager of a competing fast food restaurant chain (the names of the restaurants were omitted through a request from the interviewees. Both interviewees have an experience in the industry for more than 7 years, and more than 3 years in their respective restaurants.

The interviewees indicated common elements of customers satisfaction such as the quality of service, represented through such elements as timely response of the staff, their willingness to help, and convenience, and availability of seats and parking places. The responses obtained from expert interviews were slightly restricted and included in the quantitative part of the survey as well as the structure of the individual interviews with participants.

Individual Depth Interviews

Individual interviews, along with focus groups and the quantitative survey can be considered as the main source of the data in the research. In depth interviews is an important method of collecting qualitative information (Zikmund and Babin 2003), being the most prevailing in qualitative research strategies in marketing along with the surveys (Gummesson 2005). In that regard, the method chosen for this study is semi-structured interviews with structured and undisguised questions.

Being the most common in research today, such questions imply the same sequence and the same opportunity for response for each of the participants, with the purpose of the question being obvious from its formulation (Wrenn, Stevens, and Loudon 2007). The disadvantages might be seen in the lack of flexibility of such questions, i.e. the inability to change the question on the fly. The rationale for using in-depth interviews can be seen in the amount of details such interviews might provide as well as being easy to conduct, with each interview arranged and scheduled independently (Shao 1999).

The direction of the interviews can be best described through the perspective provided by Atkinson and Silverman, from which the interview is not so much a method of gathering information, but rather a vehicle for producing cultural talk, which can be analyzed to gain cultural knowledge about the marketplace (Moisander and Valtonen 2006). Thus, the structure of the interview is mainly focusing on the perspectives of the participants as consumers of the investigate sector of industry.

In that regard, five in-depth interviews were conducted with participants from the target group outlined previously, with most interviews being held in separate days. Despite of the structured nature of the interview, the interviewer allowed each respondent to elaborate his/her answer if prompted, and accordingly, the structure was used to establish the direction and the starting point for the answers. The themes pointed in expert interviews were again elaborated, with similar themes arising as well including the quality of the service and the availability of seats as the most common elements. A complete analysis of the results and their findings in described in the results section.

Projective Techniques

The main purpose of using projective techniques is to obtain the true feelings and attitudes of people, enabling them to present data indirectly (Proctor 2005). In that regard, projective techniques can be broadly defined as any of the means through which respondents project their deep psychological motivations, including methods such as word association, sentence completion, storytelling, etc (Wrenn, Stevens, and Loudon 2007).

In marketing projective techniques are mainly to motivational profiling, i.e. profiling the motivation of the market segment at issue to learn what promises, claims, features or benefits will make them want to buy any given product (Yeager 2003). Considering the nature of the research and the number of the interviewees, the most suitable technique among the aforementioned can be seen the word association, being useful in providing the researcher with a product- or brand-related consumer vocabulary (Steinman 2009).

In the present research the justification of using projective techniques can be seen in that respondents might intellectually process their answers, bypassing their emotions and their hidden motives in their answers. Additionally, the respondents might omit aspects that are hard to verbalize, and in that sense, projective techniques will enable the researcher to identify those aspects, through the workings of the unconscious and ego defence mechanism (Moisander and Valtonen 2006).

Due to the nature of the projective technique, being an individual exercise, it was implemented during the in-depth interviews with the respondents. The words that were chosen for the identification of the association were based mainly on the results of the expert interviews, including such words as quality, convenient, friendly, clean, and others. An interesting association was given for the word convenient, where most of the respondents associated it with words such as quiet and bright. Friendly was associated with responsive, smiling and well-dressed. The rest of the results and their findings are explained in the results section.

Quantitative Techniques

With the qualitative part of the methodology used for exploration, the quantitative part uses statistical methods to identify the relationships between the aspects explored. In that regard, the exploration was used to design the main tool of the quantitative part of this research- the survey, providing a selection of responses that could be measured and analysed (Shao 1999). Thus, having a qualitative dependency, the quantitative methodology is mainly used to raise the scientific status of marketing (Gummesson 2005).

The survey was constructed to include the elements explored in the qualitative part of the research, and accordingly, addressed top the same target group indicated earlier in the paper. The survey contained classification questions, such as gender, age and income, and preference question, assessed through the usage of 7-point Likert scale. In order to avoid bias, the surveys were given in areas with no fast food restaurants nearby, mostly malls and trade centres. Accordingly, a convenience sample of 100 participants completed the surveys in the presence of the researcher. The convenience method of sampling, i.e. any process that quickly and easily select sample elements (Wrenn, Stevens, and Loudon 2007), was used mainly due to its little time consumption as well as feasibility from a financial perspective. More detailed analysis of the survey instrument and the results of the survey can be seen in the following section.

References

Albers, S. 2009. PLS and Success Factor Studies in Marketing. In Handbook of partial least squares, ed. V. E. Vinzi, W. W. Chin, J. Henseler and H. WangNew York: Springer.

Gummesson, E. 2005. Qualitative research in marketing: Road-map for a wilderness of complexity and unpredictability. European Journal of Marketing 39 (3/4): 309-327. Emerald Insight. Web.

Kolb, B. M. 2008. Marketing research : a practical approach. Los Angeles: SAGE.

Levy, S. J. 2005. The evolution of qualitative research in consumer behavior. Journal of Business Research 58 (3): 341-347. Science Direct. Web.

Moisander, J., and A. Valtonen. 2006. Qualitative marketing research : a cultural approach, Introducing qualitative methods. London Thousand Oaks: SAGE.

Proctor, T. 2005. Essentials of marketing research. 4th ed. Harlow, England ; New York: Financial Times/Prentice Hall.

Shao, A. T. 1999. Marketing research : an aid to decision making. 1st ed. Cincinnati, OH: South-Western College.

Steinman, R. B. 2009. Projective Techniques in Consumer Research. International Bulletin of Business Administration 4 (5): 37-45. Euro Journals. Web.

Stewart, D. W., P. N. Shamdasani, and D. W. Rook. 2007. Focus groups : theory and practice. 2nd ed, Applied social research methods series v. 20. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications.

Varki, S., B. Cooil, and T. R. Roland. 2000. Modeling Fuzzy Data in Qualitative Marketing Research. Journal of Marketing Research 37 (4): 480-489. Jstor. Web.

Wrenn, B., R. E. Stevens, and D. L. Loudon. 2007. Marketing research : text and cases. 2nd ed. New York: Best Business Books.

Yeager, J. 2003. Innovative motivational profiling: comparing marketing projective techniques versus linguistic forensic techniques.(Report). The Qualitative Report 8 (1): 129(22). Academic OneFile. Web.

Zikmund, W. G., and B. J. Babin. 2003. Essentials of marketing research. 2nd ed: CENGAGE Learning.

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