"The finish line is sometimes merely the symbol of victory. All sorts of personal triumphs take place before that point, and the outcome of the race may actually be decided long before the end"

After having conducted both my focus groups things are now getting down to the business end, and who would have thought that I would be excited by the mass of content that is waiting in the dark and ready to be coded.  I guess research can have that effect on you though, when you know you have some quality data to work with and are enthusiastic about what will come out of it. So the finish line is in sight, but it is still quite far in the distance and there are more races to be run!

The focus groups were positive and went really well. The participants from my University of Canberra (UC) study were all friendly, talkative and willing to get involved in discussion. And to be honest, this bought about a big sigh of relief. I was conscious of the fact that I did not know them so there would be quite a lot of effort trying to establish the rapport. But there were no issues here, which goes to show that the willingness of the participants can do a long way in the provision of rich data. And they were a diverse group, each from a different discipline- including an environmental scientist who is a self defined greenie, which always makes for interesting conversation when the issue of sustainability and environmental practices gets thrown on the table.

Though the process also highlighted some areas for improvement, showing that it really is a continual process of improving and refining technique. For instance, I was wary of the fact that they were doing me a favour by getting involved and that I didn’t want to keep them nor waste their time. Therefore, I stuck more to the questions I took in with me and was less inclined to throw in ad-hoc questions for fear of dragging it on with potentially irrelevant discussion. But upon reflection, I realised this was the wrong approach, as some of the best information comes when it is least expected and participants are bouncing off one another- encouraging conversation is always best. Also, the lack of familiarity meant that things began rather formally. However, as we got into the swing of things, the participants became more comfortable and the responses began to have more depth to them.

Overall, they went successfully and I am really pleased with the way they went. I got some insightful, quality information out of them which I am looking forward to writing up, though I may just give a bit of a speak peak as to some of the interesting findings in my next post. Until then-