The Minnesota Twins, a professional baseball team, wanted to develop creative ways to boost sagging attendance at their ball gam
es. The Twins hired a moderator who, after every home game during the month of July, led informal discussions with groups of 6 to 10 fans to find out what they did and did not like about the baseball team. The discussions were tape recorded and videotaped so that researchers could review the data at a later date and in more detail.
What are such informal research discussions called?
a. experiments
b. secondary data
c. focus groups
d. research variables
e. hypotheses tests
A focus group involves a gathering of people whom are deliberately selected to take part in a discussion intended to know their opinion regarding certain topics or area of interest. Such discussions are usually held in environments that are non-threatening. A focus group encourages members to influence and interact with each other during the consideration and discussion of ideas. In this scenario, in order to increase the attendance during games, a moderator was hired to lead informal discussions with about 6 to 19 fans in order to know what they like and dislike about the baseball team.
