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Sociology vocabulary · Research Methods

Focus group

Meaning in sociology, with examples

nounCore term

In sociology, focus group means: A group discussion, usually with six to ten people, led by a researcher to explore their views and experiences and how they talk about a topic together.

In Turkish: odak grup, odak grup görüşmesi

How it is used

Used in sociology, market research and policy studies. The researcher who leads it is called the moderator or facilitator. Focus groups show how opinions form in interaction, but dominant voices can steer the discussion.

Example sentences

  1. We ran four focus groups with parents to discuss school choice.

  2. In the focus group, younger participants were reluctant to disagree with older ones.

Common collocations

  • run a focus group
  • focus group discussion
  • focus group participants
  • moderate a focus group
  • semi-structured interviewAn interview based on a prepared list of topics or questions that the researcher can reorder, rephrase or follow up, so that participants can answer in their own words.
  • qualitative researchResearch that collects non-numerical data, such as interviews, observations and texts, to understand people's experiences, meanings and points of view in depth.
  • respondentA person who answers the questions in a survey, questionnaire or interview.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Research Methods

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