Focus groups as a tool for critical social research in nurse education

Focus groups are now widely adopted in qualitative health and social resear ch, and have been increasingly used as a data-collection technique in nursi ng research. The focus group is not a new method, but its uses and procedur es have been considerably revised in recent years. The aim of this paper is to present an overview of the focus group as a research tool in social sci ence literature, followed by a more considered discussion on the use of foc us groups in contemporary critical social science. It draws on this work to illustrate the potential of focus groups to address some of the political issues in social research, in particular the balance of power between resea rcher and researched, and the empowerment of under-represented groups. Adva ntages of the method in connecting the researcher with group perspectives a nd experiences that may be unexplored by other methods of data collection a re discussed, and the 'collective conscience' is put forward as an appropri ate resource in data analysis. It argues that the application of focus-grou p techniques can build on experiences and principles of working with or par ticipating in groups. Focus groups are particularly applicable to research in nurse education, for involving diverse stakeholders in curriculum evalua tion and development, and in ongoing appraisals of the student's perception s of their experience, for which universities have tended to rely on survey approaches and structured questionnaires. The article ends by drawing some conclusions from the health and social research literature to inform nursi ng education research using focus groups. (C) 2001 Harcourt Publishers Ltd.