No matter what content or structure you have planned for your focus group research project, the first thing a moderator needs to do in any group is to get the participants talking. When people walk into a focus group they generally don’t know anyone, and may not even know what the discussion will be about. Those first few minutes of the discussion can set the tone for the whole ...

Respecting Your Participants - Ethical Considerations in Focus Groups
Focus groups, unlike some other forms of research, can feel quite informal. In fact, some of the best groups can look more like a table of friends chatting than a formal data collection effort. However, researchers always need to remember that focus groups (as well as one-on-one interviews and other qualitative methods) are research, and the same ethical requirements apply. If ...

Importance of Career Development In Organizational Success
In celebration of National Career Development Association’s National Career Development Day, we wanted to mark the occasion with a blog post dedicated to the importance of career development and remind organizations to invest in more structured career development platforms for their employees. According to a study conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (2012), individua ...