Focus versus nominal group interviews: a comparative analysis

Abstract

Introduces the group interview technique of nominal grouping as an alternative to the widely used technique of focus groups in qualitative market research. Nominal grouping is a highly structured technique designed to keep personal interaction at a minimum level during the process of new idea generation, while maximizing the individual contribution of each respondent. Describes a comparative experiment in which both focus groups and nominal groups of various sizes (five, seven and ten respondents) were used for the purpose of gathering customer perceived service quality improvements. The results reveal that nominal group members produced a significantly larger amount of service enhancements than respondents in focus groups. Concludes that, as far as the quality of ideas is concerned, there is a significant difference between nominal groups and focus groups with respect to the quality of ideas produced by the groups of seven respondents. Moreover, significantly greater levels of group member satisfaction with respect to the participation in the data collection process were found for the groups of seven and ten respondents, with the former receiving the highest score.