Ereiba, Y H; Glass, J and Thorpe, T (2004) Tby using focus groups in construction management research. In: Khosrowshahi, F (ed.) Proceedings of 20th Annual ARCOM Conference, 1-3 September 2004, Edinburgh, UK.
Abstract
The focus group is a research instrument used extensively in humanities, social sciences and marketing research. It is a qualitative approach that is chosen for research that requires exploration and discovery, context and depth, and interpretation (factors shared by all qualitative methods). However, the focus group is less well known to construction management researchers, who tend to select other qualitative methods such as case studies, surveys, questionnaires and occasionally workshops. There is significant scope to use focus groups in construction management research where rich, qualitative data is being sought. A focus group approach has been chosen for research being undertaken on integrating project and business process models, based on the Process Protocol, because it offers several benefits compared to interviews and surveys. These benefits and possible drawbacks will be considered together with a discussion of the applicability of the method to construction management research, developing appropriate methods and subsequent analysis. A comparison will be made with similar qualitative research methods such as interviews and workshops and there will be a commentary on how the method was employed at a critical stage to enhance the quality of the aforementioned process research. Conclusions will be drawn on how to conduct successful focus groups in construction management research.
| Item Type: | Conference Paper (Paper) |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | research methods; focus groups; construction management; process protocol |
| Index terms: | questionnaire, marketing, social science, exploration, workshop, focus group, case study, management research, interview, survey, qualitative method, qualitative research method, qualitative approach |
| Subjects: | environmental resource management, construction type, data collection methods, research design and methodology, business, theoretical framing, research methods |
| Topics: | Construction Technology, Sustainability, Research Practice, Business Strategy |
| Descriptive scope: | 5 PCTEA |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here