Preparing a discussion board  research plan.

A research plan for a discussion board can be prepared in advance. Whether you are conducting a short project over a few days or a large community project over a number of months, it pays to have the key top level topics ready to be posted for discussion. You can still add discussion topics to your plan, or remove them as the project progresses. But a plan made up of key discussion topics in context of your project objectives will give you the structure from which to grow your discussion and help extract the insights you need to answer your questions.

Setting the context

Before you start putting your board discussion plan together it’s a good idea to add a discussion board introduction. This is what participants see when they first log into the the discussion group. This is the area which enables you to welcome participants and explains why they are participating. You can also use the introduction to set ground rules and expectations when they first log in.

Tips on moderating a discussion board

1. The first discussion item you schedule to post to the board on the first day should be about setting the stage, building the confidence of participants, and preparing participants for the first real discussion topic.
2. Make the first discussion item an easy question or task that everyone can complete. This helps to informally introduce all the participants to each other, and helps with orientation of the online environment.
3. Use images and visual representations where ever you can in your discussion items. This adds to the participant engagement and makes the topic more interesting. Make sure any visual stimulus is relevant to the question or tasks you are getting participants to complete or comment on.
   
4. In your first moderator post introduce yourself to the group, tell them who you are and what your role is.
5. Encourage participation from the beginning by regularly posting replies to individual participant comments and encouraging others to comment in detail.
6. Ask participants to upload images, add YouTube videos, links to websites or answer an instant poll questions. All these stimuli will add depth to your discussion and make the experience more engaging for the participants.
7. Attach moderator notes to interesting comments and assign a note category to  help jog your memory and quickly identify the important trends during analysis.
8. Include a link to a GroupQuality intercept survey for participants to complete at the end of the discussion board. This is a great way to get some extra feedback from the group and also helps to validate any insights which may have been revealed over the duration.
9. Monitor participant activity through your dashboard and the individual participation in the administration area. Send reminder emails from the administration area or give participants a call if they fail to participate.
10. Congratulate individual participants who are following the rules and participating, use a combination of open replies so all participants can see the encouragement and private messages to individuals.
11. For boards which enable participants to comments on previous posts, remind them to go back and review topics they may have missed.
12. Use a follow up survey to get some feedback on the discussion board process, and use this information to keep improving your technique and methodology.

A discussion board is the next generation of the old style bulletin boards and includes many of the new features offered by online community software. They enable a research moderator to post discussion topics either manually or automatically at a scheduled date and time. The participant logs-in to the discussion board website using a unique username and password. The participant may then post a comment about the current discussion topic. The moderator can reply to a comment and participants can respond to each other, rate topics, participate in private or open discussions, and complete short surveys.

Over-time online focus groups using discussion boards usually take place over a 3 to 7 day period, and involves around 30 participants who interact with each other guided by at least one moderator. All participants can contribute at the same time in an open discussion or take part in an private interview with the moderator. A private discussion can take place with one moderator and a hundred participants and is an effective way of conducting a hundred one-on-one interviews at the same time.

The discussion board can also be used as an online community to generate feedback about a particular topic, product, brand or to regularly engage internal employees or a customer segment. These community boards can last for days, weeks and months and typically involves a large number of participants. The length of time and the use of the community discussion board is dependant on the type of questions that need to be answered.

The advantage of using community discussion boards is that participants can log in and respond to questions in their own time and from any location. All the participant needs is access to a computer or mobile phone. The moderator can access the board at the beginning of each new day and reply to participant comments with probing questions, or create a new discussion items based on the responses from the previous day. The moderator can add images, surveys, videos and text question to each of the discussion topics.

The moderator can attach observation notes to each of the participants comments to assist with later analysis of the text transcripts. Observers are able to log in and watch the conversation as it unfolds. They can to post a private comment for the moderator and other observers which is unseen by the participants.

The reports are delivered in a downloadable transcript complete with any participant votes, moderator notes, comments and replies organised by topic, date and time. The reports can be downloaded at any time during the board’s lifetime.

Introduction

GroupQuality® is the All-in-One online Qualitative Research & Customer Feedback tool.

GroupQuality® includes the built-in online research know-how to help you complete your project. It will deliver detailed research results or immediate top-line feedback. From the beginner to the research professional, GroupQuality® empowers you with the confidence and know how to moderate live (real-time) online focus groups.

The following guide provides an overview GroupQuality® helps you conduct effective real-time online focus groups.

How to plan a real-time (Live) online focus group

The success of your online focus group is determined by the time you spend preparing your research plan. Like most online research projects, putting together an online real-time group typically adheres to the 80/20 rule, with 80% of your time spent planning and the remaining 20% actually moderating the group.

The GroupQuality® Plan Manager provides you with all the help and tools you need to design an online research plan. A research plan can be as simple as discussion guide which includes topics you post to the group to begin a topic of discussion, or the inclusion chat prompts you can add to the groups chat box control to help you quickly select any number of predefined text sentences to post to the chat box. If you want to be a little more adventurous you can include a selection of survey questions, videos, images, websites links, and pages.

You need a clear online research objective!

As with traditional face-to-face qualitative research, to effectively answer your online research questions you must identify and define the research problem. The research problem is primarily determined by the question or questions you need answered. To understand your research problem ask the following questions:

• What is happening that requires online research to be conducted?
• Is this online research project going to be used in conjunction with traditional face to face methods? If so how will it add to the results?
• What is it that you want to know and how will the answers be used?
• What decisions will be made from the answers revealed in this online research?
• Who is the information for and what do the stakeholders have invested in the answer?

If you can answer these simple questions you are well on the way to pulling together the information needed to construct a GroupQuality® online research plan.

For a 60 or 90 minute real-time (live) focus group it is important not to try and answer too many questions, or tackle a large number of topics. Narrowing down the research plan or discussion guide to three key topics will ensure that you have enough time to generate quality insights and actionable result. If you have more than three questions or topics to cover then rate them in order of importance and pick the top three. If you still need to cover more topics we suggest you schedule an additional online focus group.

5 steps to a successful online focus group outcome

GroupQuality® provides you with a 5 step process for successfully generating insight:

1. Schedule groups

Schedule to run on a day and time which suits you and your participants. It is recommended that a real-time group be limited to 60 to 90 minutes. After this time you may find participants start to get fatigued or distracted and the quality of the discussion may start to deteriorate.

Attendance and participation is greatly improved if you spend the time ensuring that everyone has access to a computer they are familiar with. Also ensure the computer they are going to use is in a quiet room where there are no distractions! Evening groups tend to work well for groups which focus on generating consumer behavioural insights, and late afternoon is typically convenient for business groups. You may find timing is also dependant on the demographics and location of your participants.

2. Create discussion plans

The research plan or discussion guide is the most important part of the online research planning process. Get this right and you will have a template model you can reuse for future projects to effectively cut down your group preparation time. If you need help getting started then contact the GroupQuality® scripting team at support@groupquality.com.

To identify the visual stimuli you will need to present during your online focus group session, invest time scribbling down ideas and drawing out some rough outlines of the session timeline. When during the discussion would it be best to display images, video or post follow-up questions. This will help you determine what digital assets (images, videos, swf files etc.) you will need to upload to your media manager before adding them to media pages in your group plan.

Once you have created media pages using the comprehensive content management authoring tools, you can quickly add the finished page to your research plan timeline.Once in the timeline you can drag and drop them until you are satisfied with the display order. Note: once you start the online focus group you can activate each plan item in any order, or skip them if you find that time is running out.

3. Invite participants

For real-time online focus group research we recommend you keep your group between 6 and 8 participants. Less than 6 may not provide the level of participation needed to maximise the results and more than 8 may be a challenge for a single moderator to effectively manage. For example, an ideal size for a real-time online focus group is 8 participants, 1 moderator and 1 or 2 observers.

Inviting participants with a personalised message will be the first step in establishing trust between you and a participant. If it is deemed practical, we also recommend you make voice contact with the participants either by phone or Skype prior to sending out the invitations.Personal contact will provide you with an opportunity to introduce yourself and for participants to ask any questions about the proposed group topic or session. Note:By taking the time to make personal contact you will immediately improve group attendance and make participants feel a little more confident and comfortable when attending a real-time online focus group.

It is also wise to contact one or two reserve participants just in case you have one participant drop out at the last minute. This wont happen very often if you follow the steps above, but it pays to be prepared!

4. Moderating or facilitating

Your real-time online focus group session is easy when using GroupQuality’s easy to use online moderator’s control panel. The control panel is located in the moderator’s view of the group workspace and makes running a real-time online focus group session as easy as a point and click.

The control panel will help you manage the plan timeline, keep track of each participant, identify participant results, launch the online web-cam & interactive whiteboard and keep the discussion moving along.The moderator’s workspace control panel has been carefully designed to enable a single moderator or facilitator to effectively manage an entire online focus group without requiring assistance.

5. Reports

Reports generated by GroupQuality® are immediately available once the group has finished. In fact, you can review the reports while the group is still in session. Reports can be viewed online or downloaded for detailed analysis. The reporting tools within the GroupQuality® will help you search and review the chat transcripts to find interesting points of discussion.

Everything that occurs in the group is captured and reported in real-time.The reporting tools for real-time online focus groups include a built-in chat transcript analysis tool. The text analyser will identify the top ten re-occurring keywords and phrases. They are displayed and filtered by phrase length, occurrence and a assigned a chat phrase weighting score. You can eliminate words and also jump to a phrase in the transcript by simply clicking on a listed text phrase.

The reporting section also includes a full timeline view of the group’s activity as it occurred, and a comprehensive usability reporting section for those who wish to conduct online remote usability testing.

Preparing for your group

Group participants

Participants for your online real-time group can come from a number of different lists. Most organisations have a customer list or member database, this is a great place to start!

A professional online qualitative recruitment agency can assist in sourcing individuals for your online focus group either from an external audited Quality Assured research panel lists, or by helping you recruit from your own customer lists.

If you have a website you might also consider using the GroupQuality® online survey tool to create an online intercept survey to capture and screen potential participants on your website. You can also deploy a screening survey on twitter or Facebook. Once qualified through your screening survey you can assign chosen participants to a an online focus group project list in the GroupQuality® panel manager.

Screening for participants with online community discussion boards

For the best results consider participants who you think will contribute openly and constructively to an online real-time focus group session. To add to your projects online qualitative research methodology it is a good idea to use the GroupQuality® online community discussion board as a real-time focus group project precursor.

The online discussion board is easy to setup and can run over a number of days. You can invite 30 participants to an over-time discussion, usually 3 to 5 days, and post appropriate discussion topics to help narrow down a larger group of participants to those who would be the best qualified to take part in a real-time (live) session – but don’t discriminate! Sometimes people we think may be to opinionated can in fact be the most communicative in real-time online focus group discussions. While we may not always want to hear their criticisms, it can some times be more insightful than those participants who are simply willing to agree with the group consensus.

Things to consider when narrowing down participants:

• Ability to contribute constructively and consistently.
• Consideration and acknowledgement of other participants in the group.
• Demographics such as age, income, education etc.
• Online behaviour e.g. Internet usage and computer literacy.
• Availability to participate at a time which suits you.

Participant preparation

GroupQuality® includes the tools to will help both qualify and prepare participants for your scheduled group. You can choose to have invited participants complete an entry survey form. On this form you can include an image and a description of the group they have been invited to participate in. You may also wish to invite participants to upload ‘home work’ for you to examine before the group is scheduled to begin. Information collected from the participants prior to the group will help you tailor the language of your group discussion plan and better engage with participants. If you do choose to include an entry survey form as part of the invitation process, participants must complete and submit this form before GroupQuality® sends them there unique passwords.

To help with eliminating any technology compatibility issues on the participant‘s, moderator’s or observer’s chosen computer we have included an easy to use and automated website browser test link in the group invitation template. This is a website hyperlink we have placed in the invitation and reminder email which, when clicked, will take the individual to an automatic browser compatibility check. https://groupquality.com/browsertest/ If the browser is not correctly configured the results displayed will point to the information needed to fix the issue, and download the relevant software to participate in a real-time group.

For live (real-time) groups, participants, observers and moderators are required to login to the workspace using one of the following:

• PC users: Internet Explorer 7+, Firefox, Google Chrome
• Mac users: Firefox, Google Chrome

GroupQuality® requires Flash 11+ installed to use the web-cam and shared interactive whiteboard.

Please click on the following link to check the compatibility of your website browser and update as instructed. https://groupquality.com/browsertest/

Please note: We support Internet Explorer 7+, FireFox 5+, Safari 5+and the latest Chrome browser. Unfortunately we do not support the old Internet Explorer 6 and to make the most of your account we suggest you upgrade to Internet Explorer 8+.

Participant stimuli

Real-time online qualitative market research focus groups require good instructional content for participants to develop ideas, solve problems and make decisions. A GroupQuality® research plan needs to provide enough information to generate group discussion, form opinions and reveal complex issues.

Within GroupQuality®, there is a set of comprehensive authoring tools to facilitate creativity in research plans to draw out both qualitative and quantitative measurements. GroupQuality® has included a number of basic templates in you account from which to draw inspiration.

It is always recommended that you choose group stimuli which is engaging and clear. Be aware participants perceive information in the context which it is presented. Misrepresented or poorly constructed information can skew the results of your online focus groups. The online digital medium should be considered when transferring traditional paper-based content to the online environment.

Generally the reading attention span of participants for online material is shorter than it would be when viewed on paper. The reading habits for online content will typically follow an “F” shaped pattern on the screen – from left to right, top to bottom. Too much content on the screen will result in the moderator spending more time explaining the content rather than extracting the opinion or views of each group participant.

Participant incentives

Often you will need to reward or provide incentives to participants for attending your group. This can be done any number of ways. By either providing a gift voucher redeemable with your company, or by providing cash incentives distributed through online payment portals such as PayPal. Make sure the value of the reward is commensurate of the type of group you are conducting and the level of involvement required from participants.

A word of caution. It is unwise to use the products or services from a the company commissioning or conducting the research to entice people to participate. It could be construed that this will favourably bias the results of the group towards a positive opinion about the company. A participant may speak favourably of a company knowing they will receive a gift of value from them. It is recommended that you ONLY communicate the value of the incentive to the participants if you are rewarding participants with company gifts in this way.

Online focus group incentives range from as little as $30 to as much as $200, but should be generally less than those offered for attending a traditional focus groups – after all they are not traveling to participate and can sit comfortably at home or work. After the completion of your group quickly follow through with the incentive and thank your participants either by voice contract (phone or Skype) or email. In another 6 months you may want the opportunity to run another group with any number of the same participants so it pays to leave them with a positive impression of the experience.

What is the role of the moderator?

A moderator’s primary role is to keep group discussion on subject, elicit thoughts, and to explore opinions, feelings and beliefs. It is important to remember that its not a moderator’s role to force an answer from the group, or talk down a participant’s contribution. It is advised to guide the group using the research plan and to explore new paths of group discussion with open ended chat prompts.

As a moderator you should initially focus on ensuring each participant contributes to the discussion topic, answers all questions and stays on track. Time invested in putting together a well structured GroupQuality® research plan, or discussion guide, will ensure the moderator stays on track and the group stays focused.

Top 7 moderator tips when conducting GroupQuality® qualitative research groups

A moderator may face a number of challenges when conducting a real-time online qualitative research group. Here are the top 7 suggestions on how to overcome them:

1. If one participant tries to dominate the session, the moderator should invite each person to speak in turn. Use the Plan Manager section of your GroupQuality® account to build some predefined chat prompts to help diffuse or deflect the discussion.
2. Avoid personal confrontation and allow the group to police itself (e.g. “do others in the group agree?”) . Make sure you have defined the group rules before the group discussion begins. This can be done by presenting a page to the group with a basic list of rules or guidelines to follow.
3. Participants will have many different attitudes and prejudices. Don’t ignore these – work with them. Just say: “We seem to have a difference of opinion here. Let’s talk about it together. Why do we all think differently on this topic?” Then let the group discuss it. Use differences of opinion as a topic of discussion. As a GroupQuality® moderator you should always avoid taking sides!
4. If the group is slow off the mark promote and foster discussion. Ask open-ended questions. Ones that cannot be answered with just a YES or a NO but rather begin with: How? What? Why?
5. From the beginning, adopt a `listening’ rather than a `questioning’ approach. Start with general issues and use your moderator control panel to make sure you cover the issues you need to cover. Questions do not need to be followed in the order they are presented in the time-line. If the discussion naturally leads to a different topic follow this, but make sure everything is eventually covered.
6. Take issues ‘off-line’. If things get heated during the session, it may be wise to ‘park’ the issue and address it later, either as a private chat session via Group Quality (one on one with the individual) or as part of a separate group discussion.
7. Dealing with technical issues. Despite planning and practice your group members may still run into trouble. If a participant gets disconnected make sure they know they can log right back in and rejoin the group at anytime. Keep a phone number or email address of the participant nearby in case you need someone to follow-up to make sure the participant is able to continue.

7 tips for a successful online focus group.

1. Be prepared and test your research plan prior to the scheduled group.
2. Document any group rules and communicate them to members at the start as either an introductory page in the workspace or in the initial group chat. Ensure these rules are reinforced during the discussion.
3. Ensure individuals engage with one another.
4. Provide all participants the opportunity to contribute.
5. Promote healthy discussion through open ended questions.
6. Summarise key points of discussion, but do not lead.
7. Ensure group sessions run on time and stay on track.

Group Quality is the online Software as a Service (SaaS) you use to plan, design, conduct and analyze qualitative and quantitative research.

Used to conduct:

• Online focus groups
• Website usability testing
• One-on-one interviews
• Online surveys
• Online community discussion boards
• Online diaries
• and much more…

GroupQuality® is the All-in-One Qualitative research and customer feedback tool for Researchers, Marketers, Agencies, and Business.

Sign up to our FREE 7 day trial today!

 

 

 

Anyone who interacts with people understands that human behaviour can some times seem as unpredictable as the weather. But by combining online surveys and online focus groups you can go along way in understanding why people do the things that they do.

For a business you might want to understand how people react to a particular marketing message, or how you should effectively engage with employees. When combining the convenience of online surveys with the effectiveness of online focus groups you can answer many questions like these, and discover a whole new world of actionable insights!

It’s easy to see the differences between quantitative online surveys, and qualitative research methods like online focus groups, but how can they be combined, and why would you consider doing so?

Quantitative research is primarily done for statistical purposes. For mathematical reasons, it’s necessary to take a little bit of data from a large group of people. It’s good for things like opinion polls, where the emphasis is more on the quantity of respondents that fall into a given group, as opposed to what those respondents think. Quantitative research, for example, can tell you how many people in your capital city might choose vanilla over chocolate milkshakes.

Qualitative research is primarily done for the purpose of understanding why people think they way they do. It is not purely mathematical, since the groups involved in qualitative research are far too small for significant statistical analysis, and the information gained from them isn’t the kind that can be easily broken down like survey answers can. It’s good for things like new product or advertising development, where the emphasis is placed more on what respondents think and how they feel about certain things. Qualitative research might tell you that some people prefer chocolate over vanilla milkshakes because it brings up memories of enjoying a favourite chocolate bar.

Both forms of research have their place, but at first it’s still kind of hard to imagine combining them both online. On the internet, quantitative research has had more time to become accepted as the norm. Many of us have experienced an email survey invitation or a pop up window on a website asking us to answer a quick survey about the site, but opportunities to take part in qualitative research seem to be few and far between. This is unfortunate, because qualitative research often provides the basis for further quantitative research, the answers to online quantitative surveys can lead to valuable qualitative studies.

It can sometimes be difficult to get people to fill out a short survey, so it’s easy to imagine how hard it would be to get them to just drop into a random online qualitative research group! The good news is that by combining the two forms of research, you can select online qualitative study participants from among those who have qualified by completing the online quantitative survey. They meet a set of defined criteria and already show a propensity to participate online.

After a respondent answers a short online survey, the answers they’ve just given can give you ideas for further questions they’d like him or her to elaborate on. By simply requesting the respondent’s e-mail address during the survey, you now have a way to contact him or her to participate in an online focus group or community discussion board. Online surveys are very good at telling you what respondents think, but further qualitative probing can yield why they think the way they do.

Online surveys ask for very general personal information, like age, gender, and ethnic group. Questions like these can help you screen for survey participants that you would like to include in an online focus group. In this case, finding the appropriate participants is often cheaper and far less time consuming than it is in real life. Once again, you have the quantitative information you need, as well as the opportunity to include survey participants in an online focus group.

Things like product testing can also be combined with online surveys. By using survey answers to screen for respondents that fit the product’s target demographic and identify who is willing to participate in further live studies, you can find a pool of people willing to test out a new or improved product. This can be done with everything from websites, advertising, direct mail to shoes, with a very good degree of success.

Many people think of qualitative and quantitative research as two different worlds that occasionally overlap. With online, quantitative and qualitative research can be combined to achieve an effect that is greater than the sum of its parts. By allowing you to easily identify questions they would like a respondent to elaborate on, or even screen people for participation in online focus groups or product testing. Quantitative online surveys provide a very valuable addition to online qualitative research methods such as online focus groups.