This article describes a project involving 13 community focus groups on the topic of anti-racism and belonging where the researchers concluded each group with a robust discussion about how the group would prefer to receive the findings from the project. Analysis of this data, existing literature, and the practical experiences of the researchers…

This case study explores the advantages and limitations of conducting focus groups online. Though virtual focus groups have long been positioned as supplemental or inferior alternatives to in-person focus groups, this case study emphasizes the flexibility, accessibility, and possibility of conducting focus groups virtually. Providing examples from…

Purpose: The use of online focus groups to explore children and young people's (CYP) perspectives of inequalities in health and associated "sensitive" topics raises important ethical and methodological issues to consider. The purpose of the paper is to discuss lessons learnt from navigating the authors' way through some of the key…

This paper presents the challenges and opportunities of using a participatory action research (PAR) methodology in a social science PhD exploring young people's attitudes to sexting in Northern Ireland. Based upon a children's rights approach, a Young People's Advisory Group (YPAG) was created to seek advice on data collection activities and…

An innovative mixed-methods approach to exploratory focus group design is presented using a case study conducted with smallholder rice farmers in Vietnam. Understanding human decision-making under the uncertainties of a complex and changing social and environmental context requires a flexible yet structured and theoretically grounded approach.…

This research stems from our work at the University of Hong Kong that explores new ways to develop high-quality teachers, arguably the most influential element in any education system. Set against a complex backdrop of globalization, high-stakes comparative studies of educational systems, and increased demands on teachers at primary and secondary…

This chapter reviews scholarship using intersectional analyses to assess how Latina/o and Chicana/o youth navigate imbricated systems of privilege and oppression in their educational trajectories. Scholars have explored the navigational tactics Latina/o and Chicana/o students use to negotiate their intersectional identities and the institutional…

I argue for the continuing relevance of the Bourdieusian theoretical schema to research related to higher education. The paper discusses my use of Bourdieu in two research projects: an examination of the educational and occupational decision-making of final-year vocational A-level students; an analysis of the perceptions of final-year…

In 2014, we, the above authors and others on our research team, embarked on Phase II of an examination of how teacher educators were implementing diversity concerns in literacy teacher education courses and programs. The electronic survey data used in Phase I did not allow us to adequately address our research questions: What are the beliefs and…

As change agents, Extension educators may begin their program planning by identifying the audience's perceived barriers and benefits to adopting some behavior that will benefit the community. Extension professionals and researchers have used in-person focus groups to understand an audience, and they can also administer them as…

While numerous studies examine perceptions of research held by university researchers, studies examining perceptions held by school pupils are rare. To address this gap and following analysis of questionnaire data (N = 2634, KS3/4/5 pupils), we conducted 11 group interviews with 100 pupils in England to investigate their experiences of research…

Despite the stated importance of a successful kindergarten transition (TTK) for future school success, no research has addressed this transition for culturally/ethnically diverse families having children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). To address this gap, six focus groups (three with ethnically diverse parents, one with kindergarten…

This article describes the journey taken by a group of adolescents into the field and practice of youth-led research. The article gives voice to the growing number of youth participating in research and evaluation. The authors give authentic youth accounts of: (1) the process of becoming researchers and evaluators, (2) the benefits and challenges…

Programme evaluation is essential for quality assurance in education. In this paper, we describe our evaluation strategy for the first year of a new medical programme. Although we used multiple methods in the evaluation, the use of the focus group method was core. This paper reports our experiences of focus groups for this purpose. We describe the…

This research is an interpretive qualitative study that explores the perceptions and perspectives of two generations of African American male students, as related to their educational experiences at the same southeastern New Mexico high school. The central question of this research is, has the educational experience for African American male…