SAGE Journal Articles

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Baker, C.K. (2014). Dating violence and substance use: Exploring the context of adolescent relationships. Journal of Interpersonal Violence. Published online before print. November 12, 2014, doi:10.1177/0886260514556768.

The connection between adolescent dating violence (ADV) and substance use is important to consider because of the serious consequences for teens who engage in these behaviors. Although prior research shows that these two health problems are related, the context in which they occur is missing, including when (i.e., the timeline) in the relationship these events occur. To fill this gap, eight sex-specific focus groups were conducted with 39 high school–aged teens, all of whom had experienced prior relationship violence. Adolescents discussed using alcohol and/or drugs at the start of the dating relationship and after the relationship ended as a way to cope with the breakup. Alcohol and drugs were also used throughout to cope with being in an abusive relationship. The intersection of ADV and substance use occurred during instances when both partners were using alcohol and/or drugs, as well as when only one partner was using. These findings provide support for prevention and intervention programs that consider the intersection of ADV and substance use.

Brotherson, M. (1994). Interactive focus group interviewing: A qualitative research method in early intervention. Topics in Early Childhood Special Education, 14(1), 101–118.

Focus group interviewing is an interactive method of conducting qualitative research that has several potential applications in early intervention. This article discusses qualitative inquiry and suggests a six-component process to guide focus group research. The six components are (a) formulate research questions, (b) select participants, (c) develop protocol, (d) conduct focus groups, (e) analyze data, and (f) report the findings. This article presents practical suggestions for researchers who use a qualitative paradigm to address research questions in early intervention.

Matoesian, G., & Coldren, J. (2002). Language and bodily conduct in focus group evaluations of legal policy. Discourse & Society, 13(4), 469–493.

Despite the growing importance of focus group interviews for the evaluation of new legal mandates, we know very little about how these interviews function in the socially situated and concrete details of communicative practice. Consequently, how such practices mediate our interpretation and assessment of legal policy remains an unexplicated topic of social scientific inquiry. This study explores the role of verbal and nonverbal speech in a focus group interview designed to help evaluate community-policing outcomes. We begin by discussing the linguistic ideologies of focus groups and show how these presuppositions shape the interaction among focus group moderator, members of the evaluation team and community interviewees. The remaining parts of the article demonstrate how a communicative misalignment emerges in the production and interpretation of verbal and nonverbal activities — a state of crosstalk with stark consequences for the assessment of legal change. By focusing on the interpenetration of language and the body in the contextualization of meaning, we outline an approach that allows researchers to track the elusive, yet crucial, relationship between legal process and outcome.

Morgan, D. (1998). Practical strategies for combining qualitative and quantitative methods: Applications to health research. Qualitative Health Research, 8: 362–376.

This article describes a series of research designs for combining qualitative and quantitative methods, using a Priority-Sequence Model that relies on the principle of complementarity. First, a decision about the priority of the two methods selects either a qualitative or a quantitative approach to be the principal method. Second, a decision about sequencing determines whether the complementary method will serve as either a preliminary or a follow-up to the principal method. These two decisions yield four basic research designs: (a) preliminary qualitative methods in a quantitative study, (b) preliminary quantitative methods in a qualitative study, (c) follow-up qualitative methods in a quantitative study, and (d) follow-up quantitative methods in a qualitative study. The conclusions consider further research designs and the expertise necessary for multiple-methods research.

Montell, F. (1999). Focus group interviews: A new feminist method. NWSA Journal, 11(1), 44–70.

Focus groups are little used in feminist psychology, despite their methodological advantages. Following a brief introduction to the method, the article details three key ways in which the use of focus groups addresses the feminist critique of traditional methods in psychology. Focus groups are relatively naturalistic and so avoid the charge of artificiality; they offer social contexts for meaning-making and so avoid the charge of decontextualization; and they shift the balance of power away from the researcher toward the research participants and so avoid the charge of exploitation. The final section of the article, which evaluates the potential of focus groups for feminist research, identifies some other benefits of the method and also discusses some problems in the current use of focus groups. It concludes that the use—and development—of focus group methods offer feminist psychology an excellent opportunity for the future.

Morgan, D. (1995). Why things (sometimes) go wrong in focus groups. Qualitative Health Research, 5(4), 516–523.

My goal for the article is to highlight for the researcher who is using focus groups the necessity of considering research projects as a whole. This requires attending to a number of things that can go wrong at different stages. The following list of problem areas is ordered by their approximate place in the course of the research time line:

  1. Recruiting: Can you locate people to interview?
  2. Sampling: Are you interviewing the right people?
  3. Developing questions: What will you ask?
  4. Moderating: How will you interact with the participants?
  5. Analyzing: What will you do with the data?