Who's talking: drawing conclusions from focus groups—some methodological considerations

The central argument of this article is that participants in focus groups may talk and interact in many capacities. As a consequence a central methodological question in analysing focus group material is who's talking—that is, in what way are the utterances of individual members of the focus group to be interpreted. This problem is discussed by using material from three focus groups discussing the phenomenon ‘burnout’. We suggest that the participants of focus groups may constitute themselves in various ways, even just as an array of individuals talking together, without being a group and that they may shift between these different modes of interacting. Two interactive problems seem to be particularly important in the establishment of a focus group. A first interactive problem for the participants is to establish a common ground; a second is to add their contributions to the common ground. This has implications in the way the researcher is able to attribute attitudes and opinions to persons in focus groups.