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Reflections on focus group sessions regarding inclusive education: reconsidering focus group research possibilities

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Abstract

In this article we deliberate upon our way of facilitating focus group sessions with teachers concerning their views on inclusive education, by referring also to feedback that we received from the participants when they commented upon their experiences of the sessions. (The teacher participants were from three separate primary schools in South Africa.) The focus groups were held during June 2012, in schools from a semi-urban area. Immediately following the session, we posed questions to the group asking about their experience of the session overall, of the process of facilitation, of our questions guiding the discussion in the focus group, of whether they felt they had learned from the facilitators as well as from other participants in the group, and whether they would have liked us to ask any other questions. Based on this feedback, and also linking our deliberations to some examples from other researchers’ accounts of focus group research, we offer some suggestions for new ways of reflecting upon the purpose(s) of focus group interviewing in this and other research arenas.

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Notes

  1. We use the word interviewing here as this was the wording used in the design of the larger international project; but our “interviewing” took the form of the facilitation of a discussion.

  2. Other documents which inform these levels of support are:

    • Conceptual and operational guidelines for Special Schools as Resource Centres (DoE 2005). This document is in line with White Paper 6 (2001, pp. 7–8), where provision is made for special schools to be converted to resource centres (SSRC) which will “provide professional support to neighbourhood schools and are integrated into district-based support teams”.

    • Conceptual and operational guidelines for Full-Service Schools (DoE 2005). This document is complemented by the Department of Basic Education’s (2010) Guidelines for Full-service/inclusive schools.

    • Draft Guidelines for Inclusive Learning Programmes (DoE 2005)

    • National Strategy on Screening, Identification, Assessment and Support (DoE 2008).

  3. The living conditions in these settlements include poor access to basic sanitation, water supply, solid waste accumulation, shack fires recurring, and risks regarding safety and security (Misselhorn 2012). Some participants in the groups—and particularly in the third focus group—referred in detail to the challenges arising from the social situation of the children, which they saw as exacerbating challenges in implementing inclusive education to cater for all needs. For example, many of them narrated how they tried to attend to learners’ basic needs such as sharing food with them when they could tell they were hungry, taking part in the vegetable garden at the school, speaking to people who can act as guardians for them when parents are absent, etc.

  4. In all the focus groups it was expressed (by some teachers) that the immigrant children were welcomed by the South African children: that is, stories of the South African children helping them to become “integrated” also in terms of teaching them the language were offered in all focus groups.

  5. We do not here attempt to address the various ways of conceptualizing and practicing mixed-methods research that have been proposed in the literature. We follow those who argue that at the level of analysis, some integration needs to be created in order to make sense of the different data (including an understanding of the different philosophies guiding the generation of data)—see, for example, Ivankova et al. 2006, Johnson et al. (2007), McKay and Romm (2008), Leech and Onwuegbuzie (2009), Hesse-Biber 2010, and Ngulube (2010).

  6. In the first focus group, at the point of our mentioning that participants need not feel obliged to stay, two of them did leave. At that point another participant suggested someone else who could be asked if she wished to attend, and she agreed to join.

  7. We held the feedback sessions (which can also be called “debriefing sessions”) immediately after the focus group sessions proper; and this also kept up the momentum of conversation, which might have been lost if we had tried to break and call in some other person other than one of us to obtain feedback.

  8. We concur with Belzile and Öberg (2012)—who in turn cite Wilkinson (1998)—that focus groups reduce the likelihood of particular power imbalances because the researcher has “much less power and influence over a group than over an individual” (2012, p. 465). Nevertheless, as they argue, attention still has to be consciously given to this so that participants indeed feel that they have some “control” over the direction taken by the discussion (and also so that dominance of certain participants in the group can become mitigated).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. ABET Department, University of South Africa (UNISA), 392, Tshwane, 0003, South Africa

    Norma M. Nel, Norma R. A. Romm & L. D. N. Tlale

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  1. Norma M. Nel
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  2. Norma R. A. Romm
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  3. L. D. N. Tlale
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Correspondence to Norma R. A. Romm.

Appendices

Appendix 1: Extracts from our car journey conversation after third focus group session

In the text below, NN is the primary facilitator, DT the observer and note-taker, and NR the secondary facilitator

NN:

You will have noticed that I start off the focus group by saying “Dan and I come from there—we know the background”

DT:

Many people come from outside [for example, from government offices] with a bad attitude—so that is how the participants experience the people who are supposed to be helping. Sometimes they feel threatened

NR:

So initially they think it will be more of the same—more of the same attitude

NN:

When I was a district officer I had to build good relationships with the schools and I got accepted by the community

NR:

You get accepted if you approach people with the right attitude

DT:

Therefore I say in regard to the focus groups that one should start straight away so that they sense your attitude. When they see what you are doing they see that you are not coming to fight. In my after-group reflection after the first focus group, Andile [pseudonym] said to me that one lesson he learned is that one must wait to see what is going to happen before judging. That means he had a different expectation of what would occur during the focus group

NN:

Through their experiencing the dynamics they realize that we are not going to drill them. That is why my beginning sentences are expressing to them that we are at your level

NR:

And this fits with my story [that was presented at the beginning of each focus group session] that we are all researching together; we all are re-looking at these questions: we are on the same level

NN:

My experience with teachers is that often they have low self-esteem. They think you are going to come and query them about their practices. They think you are going to condemn them

NR:

So that is why we say we are asking questions with a view to exploring together. I see your point about the equalizing of the relationship. It is very inspiring that they all said that they were happy with the process of the discussion—they commented that they liked the process

NN:

Also the way of addressing them personally is a form of respect. When I say “Mary [this is now a pseudonym] what do you say? Or Phumza [another pseudonym] what do you think? Or “yes Mary, or yes Phumza”, they feel that they are addressed personally

NR continued (at another point in the conversation):

At the end of the last focus group I said to the principal “thanks for being here” and I asked him what he thinks he learned from being a participant in the group. And he said that he learned more about the commitment of his teachers and that they are trying so hard.

NN:

He was proud of them

DT:

He was grateful

NN:

We must capture this! [in our writing about the sessions]. I can tell you that this will be discussed on Monday

NR:

What will be discussed?

DT:

What they have gained through the focus group session. Remember that the one participant said that “when you asked a question, we also normally have discussed it, but your questions help us to reinforce our discussion”

NR:

And also they mentioned that it helps them to look from another angle and reflect from another angle. And on the practical level the one said she had learned about the remedial book [that one of them had mentioned she was using and that was helpful]

NN:

I want to hear the voices of the teachers

DT:

Yes this is important for policy. They speak about what they need; and they take ownership of this

Appendix 2: Table expressing the feedback from participants

Table 1 is structured by our first presenting the result of our summary of the feedback from teachers from the first focus group (FG1), where each of us had separately spoken to two participants in order to elicit feedback: that is, here there were three groups consisting of two participants—one group per researcher (NN, DT, NR). The semi-colons between statements indicate that a different participant’s words are being used. In rows two and three under each question, we continue by adding related issues that arose in the feedback with the other two groups (FG2 and FG3), where all three of us were present in these feedback sessions.

Table 1 Summary of responses to: Questions 1–6
Full size table

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Nel, N.M., Romm, N.R.A. & Tlale, L.D.N. Reflections on focus group sessions regarding inclusive education: reconsidering focus group research possibilities. Aust. Educ. Res. 42, 35–53 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13384-014-0150-3

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