Focus Group Discussion

TTO Observations

In planning for the discussion, our team drew from the TTO’s experience in hosting FGD’s. We used several elements that we had observed them use effectively to attempt to enhance our own focus group discussion. Such elements include:

  • Easel: The moderator of the focus group wrote down topics to discuss and jotted down key points brought up in conversation on an easel positioned at the front of the room. This was effective in allowing everyone to recall major points, demonstrate that we were listening, and help people follow the flow of the discussion.
  • Use of language: We stressed at the beginning of the discussion that participants should speak in whatever language they felt comfortable using. We felt this was effective because it allowed participants to fully illustrate their point.
  • Icebreaker: We used an icebreaker at the beginning of the discussion, which was valuable for getting the participants to be more comfortable and feel open speaking.

Discussion Plan

In preparation for our meeting, our team created a detailed discussion plan. The plan outlined our goals for the focus group, and the below time line shows the major discussion topics that we covered in the meeting. The most critical and significant portion of the discussion was the “what-ifs?” section, which was allotted the most time. The what-if concept is a research tool that the TTO developed for use in designing programs to help small business owners who may not have had very much formal education. The basic concept is that rather than describe a potential program in business terms that shop owners may not fully understand, pose a potential program as a hypothetical ‘what-if’ statement using simpler language, and ask them what they think of the idea (Bear, 2004). We modified this concept slightly, in order to gauge the interest of shop owners in both capacity building and the Shop-Net program without specifically mentioning either by name. After presenting these ideas, asked them their thoughts on the concept, questions they have about it, and why or why not they would be willing to participate in such a service.


Effectively marketing the focus group discussion to shop owners was an important phase in implementing the meeting.  To ensure adequate participation in the discussion, we created a half page flyer to use as an invitation, which was easily distributed to spaza shop owners. The flyer below highlight basic information such as the time and place of the meeting and a general description of the purpose of the discussion.

Invitation to the focus group discussion

Invitation to the focus group discussion

Our team decided that with the help of co-researchers, we should translate the flyer from English to Xhosa and only distribute the Xhosa version. In this way all the shop owners would be able to understand the entire invitation, and it would be easier to give it to friends or family of shop owners who were not in when we visited their shops. We made sure that the co-researchers translated the flyer directly, and did not simply paraphrase, to ensure no miscommunications. We also decided that we would offer a free lunch to all the participants, as an added incentive to attend, and this was advertised on the flyer.

When distributing the flyers, we explained the purpose of the discussion and gave the flyer to the shop owner, along with printed photos of them in their shops. These photos were taken at the conclusion of the detailed interviews we had performed earlier. We gave them these pictures as a thank you for initially speaking with us, and as a sign of good will that would encourage them to attend our meeting. We also asked all the shop owners who agreed to attend fill out an information sheet where they listed their name, their shop name, and their phone number. We then used this contact information to get in touch with shop owners on the day of the meeting and remind them of the time and place.

Other Logistics

We heavily planned the role of each of our team members on the day of the discussion. In the morning we set up a room to handle all of the shop owners, set out the food, and prepared the easel. For the discussion we employed the expertise of two co-researchers in order to assist with translation during the meeting. Before the meeting started, two team members with one co-researcher waited outside, and as each shop owner arrived they filled out an attendance sheet with their name, shop name, and contact information. We also gave each person a nametag, and all wore nametags ourselves. During the meeting, the four of us rotated through our roles as the topic of the discussion changed. At any time we had two people acting as facilitators leading the discussion. One person was the main facilitator, while the other person recorded notes on the easel. The other two-team members took notes.

The greatest challenge in running the focus group was the immense language barrier we faced. Even with the help of two co-researchers, situations arose where shop owners began to have discussions between themselves in Xhosa, and there was not always an opportunity for the discussion to be translated for us. We anticipated this occurring, and so in the days leading up to the FGD we worked heavily with our co-researchers so that they fully understood the goals of the discussion, and were nearly as competent as we were at leading the discussion.

We also utilized a voice recorder to make a recording of the meeting. This was incredibly useful because in the following days we were able to go back and listen to the recording at a slower pace with our co-researchers. At that time we had them fully translate the entire meeting, so that even though we inevitably missed some points during the discussion we were able to grasp everything that occurred eventually. At that point we also wrote a detailed summary of the discussion.