Focus Group Composition: Who Should Be in the Same Group?

If your question concerns shared workplace routines, colleagues may help each other reconstruct everyday practices. If it concerns experiences of supervision, placing supervisors and directly supervised staff together may discourage criticism.

Neither similarity nor diversity is automatically best. Similar participants may feel more comfortable but take shared assumptions for granted. A mixed group may expose useful differences but reproduce hierarchies. The choice should follow the research question and the sensitivity of the topic.

For a fictional study of appointment systems, the team considers three participant categories: clinic managers, frontline staff and service users. A single mixed group would be easy to organise, but users may not want to describe a negative encounter in front of the staff involved.

An initial design could use separate groups for users and frontline staff, with managers interviewed separately. This is one defensible option, not a universal requirement.

Record the reason for the grouping: the aim is to support discussion of experiences without direct supervisory or service relationships dominating the conversation. Then identify what that separation means you will not observe, such as real-time negotiation between stakeholder groups.

“Community members” are not a socially uniform population. Age, language, disability, status, gender and existing relationships may influence participation. Do not infer comfort from a broad label.

Discuss composition with people familiar with the context, while protecting recruitment confidentiality. Avoid recruiting through a gatekeeper in a way that makes participation appear compulsory or reveals sensitive eligibility information.

The study by Hennink, Kaiser and Weber. What Influences Saturation? Estimating Sample Sizes in Focus Group Research. 2019. illustrates that group design and the type of understanding sought influence sample-size reasoning. It should not be reduced to a fixed rule that a certain number of groups always produces sufficient evidence.

A thoughtful composition does not remove power differences. Train facilitators to invite quieter contributions without pressuring anyone, interrupt domination respectfully and explore disagreement without turning it into a debate that must be won.

Useful prompts include “Has anyone had a different experience?” and “What happens in other situations?” Avoid treating the first confident answer as the group’s position.

Document relevant interaction: hesitation after a senior participant speaks, shared laughter, disagreement or rapid consensus. These observations need interpretation in context, not automatic psychological explanations.

Researchers can describe how they will protect recordings and transcripts, but cannot guarantee what participants will repeat outside the group. Explain this limitation during consent and agree on ground rules without overstating their protection.

For highly sensitive personal experiences, consider whether individual interviews or another method would better support privacy. Follow the study’s approved procedures rather than improvising a method change during recruitment.

Explain who participated together, why, who facilitated and which relationships could have influenced discussion. Tong, Sainsbury and Craig. COREQ: a 32-item checklist for interviews and focus groups. 2007. provides reporting prompts for interviews and focus groups, but the explanation must remain specific to your study.

Finally, ask whether a reader can understand why these people were in this room together. If the only answer is convenience, revisit the design. Find related planning guidance in the qualitative research collection.