What is a focus group and what are its appropriate uses?
What will be an ideal response?
A focus group is an interview style designed for small groups of unrelated individuals formed by an investigator, and led in a group discussion on some particular topic or topics. Researchers strive to learn through discussion about conscious, semiconscious, and unconscious psychological and sociocultural characteristics and processes among various groups. It is a method that is most appropriate for investigating motivations, decisions, and priorities. There are guided or unguided group discussions addressing a particular topic of interest to the group or researcher. They are useful for:
1. Obtaining general background information about a topic of interest.
2. Generating research hypotheses that can be submitted to further research and testing using more quantitative approaches.
3. Stimulating new ideas and creative concepts.
4. Diagnosing the potential for problems with a new program, service, or product.
5. Generating impressions of products, programs, services, institutions, or other objects of interest.
6. Learning how respondents talk about the phenomenon of interest, which may facilitate quantitative research tools.
7. Interpreting previously obtained qualitative results.
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Apgar and Callahan describe an aggressive person as the:
a. Persecutor b. Executioner c. Martyr d. Oaf
Research on Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) was delayed in the early 1980s
because:
a. AIDS victims did not seek medical care until they were very ill. b. the Reagan Administration was cutting social programs. c. the disease first appeared in groups for whom they powers?that?be felt little sympathy. d. both the Reagan Administration was cutting social programs, and the disease first appeared in groups for whom they powers?that?be felt little sympathy.
According to Hoffman, which one of the following characterizes the method of induction as a form of
disciplinary strategy?
a. Physical punishment b. Attempts to influence behavior with rational arguments c. Verbal abuse d. Attempts to influence behavior with rewards
Along with the achievement of insight, the processes of working through and ______ are considered three specific processes that facilitate change in psychodynamic therapy
a. reintegrating split-off parts of the ego b. sublimation c. reciprocal introjection d. warding off libidinal and aggressive impulses