Online Facebook Focus Group Research of Hard-to-Reach Participants

Preliminary Observations and Setting Up

We started this project with first observing existing groups on Facebook and focusing on groups that were possible sites that adult TCKs might find attractive. We observed two existing Facebook open groups, namely, “Third Culture Kids Everywhere” and “You know you are Third culture kids when … ” for 3 months from April to June 2013. In this early process of observation, we wanted to learn:

 who were the members of these existing groups;

We focused our observation to postings that generated more than 10 comments and noted the popular topics of discussion. Initial observations revealed that there were more than 1,500 users of Facebook who identified themselves as TCKs. TCKs who joined these groups also claimed that they found a sense of belonging in the group, even though it was only in the cyber world.

After the initial observations, we conducted a pilot study of a Facebook focus group discussion about what parents of young TCKs could do to prepare their children for the next move and to ensure the well-being of their children. Within 1 week, we received 50 comments for our post, which supported our initiative to gather potentially useful data for the main project with adult TCKs. We also noticed that interactions occurred primarily before working hours and during the weekend or lunch breaks in the participants’ respective time zones. This pattern most probably occurred because participants interacted on Facebook when they had some spare time. As suggested by Bystedt, Lynn, and Potts (2003) for face-to-face focus groups, we used the outcomes of our observations and the pilot study to identify discussion topics for the main project on perceptions of belongingness and place identity construction of TCKs. Also similar to traditional focus groups, we prepared a response schedule and set up the housekeeping rules discussed in more detail below.

Recruitment

Following the preliminary observations, we set up the formal study to take place from December 2013 to February 2014 and recruited participants using a snowball-sampling method. The research information was posted in the Facebook group of TCKs and other TCKs-related websites and asked for volunteers to recommend our research to their friends who met the criteria of TCKs for our research. We recruited both male and female participants who were 18 years or above and who identified themselves as TCKs having lived in at least three countries during their developmental years (i.e., childhood to 18 years). Although language was not a criterion, participants had to be conversant in English, familiar with the SFFG context, and aware of its settings and privacy.

In less than 1 week after posting the messages on Facebook, the facilitator received 20 replies and over 25 private messages inquiring about the project from TCKs wanting to sign up. The facilitator replied to all inquiries including the following information:

the details of research project;

The invitation to accept “friend” status enabled us to invite them to the group discussion, and it took on average between 2 and 3 days for participants to respond positively to the friend acceptance. All correspondences between the participants and us were either by e-mail or by private message and were archived electronically. Adult TCKs who participated in this research were aware that all other participants were also TCKs, which enabled them to develop a sense of belonging within the group (Barker, 2009) and for the researchers to establish rapport. The biographic questionnaire also included question on time availability of the participants to join the focus group discussion, with the option of GMT+8: 6–8 a.m., 12 noon–2 p.m., 5–8 p.m., and 12 midnight–3 a.m. Although participants accepted the invitation quickly, it took almost a month to collect all the signed informed consent forms and biographic information.

Advocates of traditional focus group interviews recommend group sizes of between six and eight participants to ease moderation, assure that each member has an equal opportunity to respond, and to cover all topics in 60- to 90-min period (Krueger & Casey, 2000). In the SFFG where conversations become digitized, facilitation of group dynamics became less problematic, and groups could have more members and allow for lengthier and in-depth discussions over a period of time. We started with five participants in the first SFFG and quickly gathered more than 20 pages (A4), double-spaced transcript. Thus, we concluded that a maximum of five to six participants were sufficient to collect rich data using the SFFG approach. In total, 35 eligible participants from 7 continents signed up to participate in the study. These participants were assigned to seven groups based on the participant’s age provided in the biographic questionnaire and the time when a participant accepted the “friend” invitation. Finally, we conducted three SFFGs with participants aged 19–29 years, two groups with participants aged 30–39 years, and two groups with participants aged >40 years. The seven group discussions using SFFG were conducted simultaneously during the period from December 2013 to February 2014 and each lasting approximately 10–18 days each.

Ethical Consideration

It is important to note that for the SFFGs we conducted, only the facilitator could assign participants to join the group. Each member in the SFFG could become “friends” with other participants in the same group but it was not necessary and it was at their own discretion. As Facebook users, participants had to register and accept the Facebook terms of use. Facebook explicitly protects certain user rights and requires that any operator or facilitator of a Facebook application should obtain consent from users and clarify what information would be gathered and how the material would be used (Boyd, 2008; Solberg, 2010; Zimmer, 2010). In addressing ethical concern of this research project, participants were informed about the purpose, procedure, and benefits/risks of the study (e.g., the fact that Facebook is itself archiving all data) and were reassured about privacy. All participants also had to sign the informed consent provided during the invitation period (Wiles, Crow, Heath, & Charles, 2008). The consent form informed participants about their right to refuse to post or withdraw from the study at any time. All consent forms were electronically signed and e-mailed back to the researchers. Pseudonyms were used in the transcripts and data analysis (i.e., name and name of affiliated places or organization).

Preparation

The SFFG for the formal study were conducted in a similar way to traditional focus groups. In this regard, the facilitator would start the discussion with an introduction and present the housekeeping rules and response schedule, before inviting all members to introduce themselves. Introductions could be done parallel when the participants were online during the scheduled time period. Establishing rapport between the facilitator and the group members was important (Terrell, 2011), and prior to conducting further discussions, the facilitator engaged with the participants about their personal Facebook profiles as they were “friends” in cyberspace. Furthermore, the facilitator could check if participants were online or whether the participants knew or became friends with each other beyond the scope of the study. Bear in mind, that every Facebook user can control what they want their friends or audience to see. The participants could therefore “see” each other within the Facebook interface once friendships had been established (Back et al., 2010; Barker, 2009).

As mentioned earlier, after setting up the formal study, the facilitator received responses from 35 volunteers who wanted to participate and who were assigned to seven smaller groups. Accepting the “friends” option for the SFFG, we observed with great excitement how quickly group members became familiar with each other and establish a sense of cohesion. Rapport building was easy, and we could sense a positive vibe among the adult TCK participants with everyone being friendly, open to exploring the topic, personally involved, and without restraining themselves when expressing both pleasant and unpleasant memories. It seemed as though all participants related well to the many unspoken traditions, customs, values, and rituals only understood among TCKs, and they could easily detect whether or not another member belonged to the same “culture,” which assisted with ensuring the authenticity of participants’ identity. The interaction between the participants was spontaneous, honest, and straightforward with no real need to solicit responses.

Monitoring

In the SFFG, monitoring the group dynamic closely for the first 72 hr was crucial to the success of establishing rapport and a reasonable response pattern given the various time zones of participants in the group. For this purpose, we set up the following housekeeping rules once participants signed up to a particular group (Bengry-Howell & Griffin, 2012):

The SFFG will discuss questions related to the topic as stipulated in the welcome post.

Monitoring continued after posting a question in the SFFG and when the facilitator could observe that all participants had viewed the post during the predetermined scheduled time for the discussion. Some participants disappeared from the discussion and had to be reminded of the housekeeping rules. If there was no response from a participant at the scheduled time, the facilitator would wait for the next time frame before taking action and reminding the participants to respond as stipulated in the housekeeping rules. If the participant still did not show up for three scheduled time frames, the facilitator would send a private message to ask if the participant needed a different schedule or had any pertinent reasons for not participating. Below are some of the replies we received:

Sending a private message is another advantage of the SFFG allowing the facilitator to monitor participation without offending the participant in any way, as others would not be aware of such communication. Thus, the researcher–participant relationship was not jeopardized as could be the case in traditional face-to-face focus groups. In case someone responded that they had nothing to add, the facilitator would encouraged all participants, in a friendly and inviting manner to use the “like” or “thumbs up” to indicate that they agreed to a specific comment from another participant to avoid questioning their participation in the discussion.

The facilitator also had to ensure that all participants remained engaged with the topic while simultaneously safeguarding against a participant getting upset because he or she did not receive a prompt response. In some cases, the facilitator could rephrase the question for all to see or write a comment directly to an individual participant asking for a response. As an example of this monitoring process, the following summary suffices:

Facilitator posted the question: What were the challenges of repeatedly changing schools?

Follow-up responses from the facilitator directed at individual participants:

Amy, in your biodata you mentioned you attended 12 different schools before the age of 18 years. Please share your experience in leaving and adjusting to so many schools.

Further to monitoring the progress in the SFFG, the facilitator had to know when to post a new topic for discussion. In a traditional face-to-face focus group, the next prompt or topic would only be presented once each group member had a chance to reply and a draft consensus was achieved. However, in the SFGG, some members might be eager to go to the next topic. Participants in the SFFG responded at a different pace than would be expected in a traditional face-to-face focus group because the discussion took place asynchronously. Thus, in an attempt not to lose the momentum and engagement of participants, the facilitator might have to post the next topic even before a previous topic had been fully responded to by all members. On the other hand, in the SFFG the facilitator could always recapture an earlier topic if considered important, although the discussion for a second topic had already started. Most importantly, the facilitator needed to be careful not to post another topic too soon and possibly stymie participant discussion. Rather, the facilitator needed to remain vigilant of all topics under discussion and should review earlier posts and responses during times when others were not online to recapture topics not fully discussed and “re-engage” participants if necessary. In this way, the SFFG made it easier than for traditional focus groups to keep participants involved and obtain rich data from participants.

Keep Tracking of the Responses

Further to monitoring group participation in the SFFG, the facilitator had to be vigilant keeping each member in the loop and at the same pace with other members. Keeping track of the responses in the SFFG we observed that participants across all age-groups seemed apparently keen to read and comment on another participants’ content. Participants logged on during the prescheduled time periods and responded quickly and coherently on other people’s posts. We also observed that participants were not reluctant to respond both positively and negatively to another participant’s content allowing for dynamic conversations within the group.

Moreover, the responsiveness of participants had both positive and negative consequences on the facilitator’s role keeping track of replies as more than one reply could arrive at the same time. In some instances, participants might not have read a previous post from another member, responded too quickly, or diverted the discussion away from the provided question prompt. Time and geographical location might be overcome with the SFFG but could also boomerang. For example, one member might be active during dawn, and someone in a different part of the world would only be reading the response in her or his part of the world the next day.

Common to a synchronous focus group where a few individuals could dominate the discussion and the facilitator had to intervene to balance participation among all members, some group members in the SFFG posted lengthy responses (1–2 pages) or responded with a single word. Although providing valuable data, lengthy responses could be off-putting to other members who might be reluctant to read and comment on the various issues presented in the long response. In the SFFG, the facilitator used a strategy of intervening to lengthy posts by extracting the participant’s comments in point format and making it easier for other members to read and comment. In another case, responses from one participant were posted in a staggered manner and presented in several posts or posted in between the responses from other participants thus creating difficulty keeping track and requiring additional attention to follow. The facilitator needed to be alert and paraphrase these staggered responses to maintain a degree of coherence in the discussion on a topic. Such summarizing or paraphrasing often took place during times when there was no prescheduled discussion, and group members were not active.

On the other hand, brief, single word responses could alert the facilitator to prompts that were too dichotomous eliciting a discussion. Brief responses could be as short as one word or even a symbol (i.e., emoticon) or abbreviation and interpreted as:

 The participants considered the responses in the focus group were saturated when replying with “Agree” or “Correct.”

Some scholars have criticized the absence of nonverbal behavior or communication in the online focus group affecting the quality and depth of data (Graffigna & Bosio, 2006; Greenbaum, 1998, 2003; Stewart & Williams, 2005). However, we believe that nonverbal communication in the online focus group emerged in different forms and modes of communication. In asynchronous focus groups such as the SFFG, there were many linguistic characteristics mirroring the spoken word and extending beyond what is possible in traditional face-to-face focus groups. For example, participants could post blogs, photos, songs, videos, emoticons, and links to other websites.

Nonverbal communications mimicking speech acts are common in social media and we also observed the use of these communication strategies in the SFFG in the form of emoticons and abbreviations. Examples of these nonverbal speech acts in the posts of participants included:

phatic statements, such as “omg (Oh my God),” “arrrgh,” “lol” (laugh out loud);

The speech acts in the participants’ responses alerted the facilitator to the mood in the group and helped with interpreting the group dynamics, processes, and meanings (Stewart & Williams, 2005). The following excerpt suffices as an example of how emoticons and text abbreviations were used to set a tone of sadness and irony when responding to the question of “How do being different affected you?”

The nonverbal communication through the speech acts mentioned here gave proof that the tone of the group interaction could be observed in a similar manner to what is expected in traditional face-to-face focus group discussions. These speech acts were also incorporated in the transcripts and added richness to the data, as would the researcher’s field notes of nonverbal communication in a traditional focus group setting. Given that the facilitator had more time to reflect upon responses, the different modes of communication used in the SFFG allowed her to pay attention to and capture nonverbal communication embedded in the text, something often problematic when conducting real-time focus groups. Thus, the speech acts and other modes of communication added a further dimension to the data collection process and could be considered the artifacts available when conducting ethnographic research with SFFG.