Focus Group Training

1. Focus Group Training Conducting Focus Groups with Visitors who are Blind/Low Vision Hosted by Art Education for the Blind/Art Beyond Sight Institute Museum of Science, Boston, Research and Evaluation Dept.

2. Outline • Introductions • About the project • How to conduct a focus group • Review focus group protocol • Activities • Concluding remarks

3. Focus group purpose • To gather information that can inform the development of pilot programs that meet the needs and interests of visitors who are blind or have low vision • To provide professional development for museum professionals

4. Focus group logistics (cont.) • Process for data collection • Seven sites • Notes and/or video/audio • IRB approved consent forms • Process for data analysis • Code data for patterns and themes • Beginning themes– from you! • Inclusion as a conceptual framework • Within-group and cross-group analyses

5. How to conduct a focus group

6. Why conduct evaluations • It is a critical element in… • Creating responsive institutions • Acknowledging diversity • Promoting self-directed learning • Testing our assumptions • Proving our worth • Improving our efforts

7. Focus groups as evaluation tool • Helpful for learning about visitor interests • Identify broad themes and trends • Encourage discussions • Not useful for quantifying responses • Not useful for closed-ended questions

8. Recruitment • Adults who are blind/have low vision • Individuals with diverse experiences • Museum-going habits • Professions/interests • Disability (blind and low vision) • People with disabilities– not service providers

9. Asking questions • Use the protocol as a guide, not a script • Start with required questions • Probe and ask clarifying questions • Make sure all voices are heard • Record names during introductions and use names to encourage responses • Encourage positive and negative responses • Use a round-robin technique if necessary

10. Asking questions--probing • Probes are questions you ask to learn more about statements already made • Strong probes are open-ended • “Tell me more about that” • Weak probes are… • Leading—point toward a “correct” answer • Closed-ended—limits the response

11. Asking questions-- listening • Note participant comments you would like to learn more about • Refer back to participant statements • Pause and allow time for silence • Do not correct participants • Do not provide information about the museum (until the end)

12. Asking questions-- clarifying • Effective listening helps you to ask clarifying questions: • “You mentioned that your last visit to the museum was uncomfortable. What made the visit uncomfortable?” • “I’d like to go back for a moment to something you mentioned earlier, how you said you like experiences that are hands-on. Could you tell me more about what you think of when you say ‘hands-on’?”

13. Taking notes • Designate a note-taker • Develop a participant key • Map the table of participants • Note who says what during the conversation • Record exact words and phrases • Record the questions and the responses

14. Review of the focus group protocol

15. What we hope to learn • What are the elements of a museum education experience that are important for visitors who are blind/have low vision? • What kinds of experiences will encourage repeat visits? • What kinds of experiences might discourage future visits?

16. Focus group protocol • Divided into three sections • Welcome and introduction • Current museum experiences • Future museum experiences • Open-ended questions • Closed-ended questions asked on a survey • Required and optional questions

17. Personalizing the protocol • You can… • Make slight changes to question wording • Add one or two new questions • Write your own program descriptions • Provide museum information at the END

18. Activities

19. Probing • What questions might you ask in response to the following statement: • Q: Do you go to museums often? • A: Not anymore. I used to. I used to basically live in them. When I traveled I always spent all my time in museums.

20. Probing • What questions might you ask in response to the following statement: • A: I like an art museum to show me something I've never seen before or to see things in a new way.

21. Taking notes • Please take notes as Nina and Joan answer the following question from the focus group protocol: • Describe what an ideal experience for you would be like in an art museum.