Learning accumulation from unfamiliar environments: informal focus groups

Abstract

Informal and accidental focus groups emerged in which academic personnel of the same higher education institutions (HEIs) who travel together in small vehicles, stimulated the interest to embark on this writing. The people traveling together have to interact with one another even where they initially did not know each other, due to close proximity. These opportunities took place in various settings of South Africa, such as years and places. The authors realised that especially when these trips are too long, dialogues that take place there can include informative life lessons. They then formerly decided to ‘collect’ data through observations, sometimes taking field notes such as in anthropological research approaches. The findings from very few focus groups produced a variety of lessons for the authors, but it was more pleasing that the lessons learned by the focus group members on those platforms were massive. The study found the proximity and separation of different departments as lost opportunities. It then recommends the introduction of interactions of an informal nature for experts of different fields, including those who do not even know one another.