Question: 'Assess the benefits and drawbacks of 2 research methods' - Essay Example

Download file to see previous pages Focus Groups and Surveys. The following sections will deal with the benefits and drawbacks of the two methods.
Focus groups classify under the primary research methods. The focus groups is referred to a panel of respondents that are chosen by the researcher to gain opinions for specific issues from time to time (Sekaran, 2000, p. 221). Jobber (2004), describes focus groups to involve, ‘unstructured or semi structured discussions between a moderator or group leader who is often a psychologist, and a group of consumers’. A focus group research involves inviting a group of six to ten people who can spend a few hours to discuss a product, service, company or any other type of marketing entity (Kotler, 2009). These groups generally have the moderator who starts the discussion with a broad question which forms the basis of the discussion. The moderator helps the people discuss the topic and also encourage a free and open discussion. The main reason for the moderator’s presence is to allow the discussion to remain ‘focused’ and not move away from the topic. This allows the people to bring out their deep thoughts and any feeling in the group dynamics. The main purpose of these groups is to enable the companies to gain complete and focused knowledge about the customers. The focus groups allow companies to gain information like the beliefs, cultures, attitudes, motivation, behaviour and also the preferences of the customers and thereby let companies design and develop their products and services based on this. In the case of cultural studies using this method has a number of benefits as it allows people to provide their views and opinions on the subject matter and provide the researcher with a chance to gain complete understanding of the cultural and communication studies. The ideas that are got from such groups act as a food for thought to the marketers as they would not have arisen in normal one to one ...Download file to see next pagesRead More