THE DEVILS ADVOCATE - A STRATEGY TO AVOID GROUPTHINK AND STIMULATE DISCUSSION IN FOCUS GROUPS

The focus group is an increasingly popular qualitative research method in health research to gain insight into complex problems. Concerns ha ve been expressed about how best to stimulate free and open discussion ; especially on controversial issues and/or when the group comprises p eople with different power and status. A potential pitfall of the focu s group technique is groupthink: the impact of censoring and conformin g as described by such social psychologists as Irving Janis. The artic le describes an evaluation of a method to reduce groupthink and stimul ate creativity and controversy in focus groups that analyzed consultat ion between an Australian federal govern ment department and its commu nities. The article recommends to researchers using focus groups the s elective use of devil's advocates to reflect different perspectives to groups, to ask questions in a different way, to introduce new questio ns, and to avoid groups arriving at premature solutions.