Britain Thinks: Ask fewer questions - but listen much harder to the answers

This article argues that the closed questions often asked in focus groups do not yield the insight that is needed.

Britain Thinks: Ask fewer questions – but listen much harder to the answers

Deborah MattinsonBritainThinks

Back in 1997, the then BBC political editor, Robin Oakley, declared that focus groups were "the chicken entrails of modern politics". Almost 20 years on, I'm not sure what Robin Oakley is up to nowadays, but the focus group, ever-more prevalent in politics, marketing and much else, seems to have outlived him.

'Focus' group has now become a generic term: a shorthand for a group of qualitative methods replacing what used to be known as a 'group discussion'. The clue is in the name....

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