Gender Nutrition Methods Workshop- 2013

1. Group Interviews and
Focus Group Discussions
Deborah Rubin
Cultural Practice, LLC
A4NH Gender-Nutrition Methods Workshop
Nairobi, December 2013

2. Is there a difference?
Group Interview
Focus Group Discussion
Purpose: To obtain data
from a group of people
together on the same topic
or topics using a structured
questionnaire
Purpose: To explore issues
and to use group interaction to
do so, especially on
experiences, attitudes, and
opinions
Not just “asking people things”!

3. Group Interview
Characteristics:
• Use structured set of questions
Q. Who had breakfast this morning?
Q. What foods did you eat for breakfast?
Q. What beverages did you drink
for/with breakfast?
• Information flow is primarily one-way,
from the interviewees to the interviewer
• Interviewer/researcher maintains
control and leads interviewees through
the topic
Benefits:
•
•
Convenience
Security

4. Focus Group Discussion
Characteristics:
• Uses structured process for discussion
Q. 1: What are your experiences – What do you have
for breakfast most mornings and why do you choose
those items?
Q. 2: What are the challenges to changing people
attitudes about eating a nutritious breakfast?
Q. 3: What actions can be taken to get more people to
eat a nutritious breakfast?
• Interviewer/researcher facilitates discussions among
participants
Benefits:
• Group interaction creates new knowledge; participants hear each other and create
new ideas, sometime influencing previously held opinions
• Make visible group norms, shared culture and language, clarifying not one “right
answer” but revealing which views are more widely held and to clarify their meaning

5. Group Selection
Purposive sampling: using selection criteria that will reveal
differences in the data, e.g., social or demographic dimensions
including gender, age, economic level, rural/urban, marital status,
with or without children under 5 years of age
• Group size
• Degree of familiarity
• Use of pre-existing groups (e.g., farmer association)
• Mixed or same sex

6. Challenges
•
•
•
•
•
Getting people to talk – but not too much
Overcoming focus group fatigue
FGDs need really skilled moderators
Managing conflict
Managing ethical issues
– Chatham house rules
– Uncovering abuse

7. Paul Baran (1957) once wrote, “whether or not there is
meat in the kitchen is not decided in the kitchen.”
Group Interview
• Which household members
prepared dinner yesterday?
• Who decided what to cook?
• Which of those food items had
been purchased?
• Who purchased those foods?
• Who provided the money to
purchase the food?
Focus Group Discussion
Experience
• Describe who decides what is
cooked for dinner at your home.
• Describe men’s and women’s
responsibilities for contributing
to dinner (who buys the food,
who prepares it, who cooks it)
• Why is it handled in this way?
Challenges/Discussion
• Would you like to see any
changes in who decides about
what is served for dinner?
Actions or Resolution
• What could you do to change
this division of labor?